


Out of lullabies

by lbmisscharlie



Series: Cinnamon [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Child Neglect, Drug Use, Parenthood, child endangerment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-28
Updated: 2013-05-28
Packaged: 2017-12-13 04:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/820078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lbmisscharlie/pseuds/lbmisscharlie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Family is all we have in the end.</i>
</p><p>Prequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/484035/chapters/842620">Fill our mouths with cinnamon now</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of lullabies

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my baby-picker [peninsulamamoenam](http://peninsulamamoenam.tumblr.com) and my brit-pickers [yalublyutebya](http://archiveofourown.org/users/yalublyutebya/pseuds/yalublyutebya) and [1electricpirate](http://archiveofourown.org/users/1electricpirate). You all are stars! 
> 
> Any remaining mistakes are, of course, my own. Please mind the tags before venturing forth.
> 
> Title is from The Hush Sound's [Honey](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1nhljdqf0E)

Sherlock woke to Mycroft’s measured knocking at his door. He sat up without opening his eyes, curling his spine and rolling his neck, vertebrae cracking satisfactorily. His head, cottoned and pounding, would have been enough evidence to his night’s activities even without the sour, stale smell of sweat and sex heavy in the air, the slight burn of his thigh muscles and dehydrated fuzziness of his mouth, and the stocky, well-muscled man shifting in bed next to him.

With a sigh, Sherlock cracked his eyes open. He didn’t know why he so often let them stay, the anonymous bodies he took to his bed, other than a complete disinterest in discussion when in his post-orgasmic state. They all looked so pathetic in the morning, that day’s man no exception, breathing heavily through his mouth, drooling on the already rank pillowcases, hair sticking up in the back and the marks of Sherlock’s nails pink and raised on his shoulder.

He’d been marginally more interesting the night before, bent over Sherlock’s sofa, with the soft buzz of alcohol and amyl nitrites in his blood loosening both his muscles and inhibitions. 

Mycroft’s knock sounded again, the firm rat-tat-tat belying none of the annoyance he was no doubt feeling. Sherlock yawned, cracking his jaw, and felt around on the floor next to the bed for his pants. Not finding them, he stood and walked out of the small bedroom, naked, scratching an itch on his left forearm. 

In the kitchen, he turned on the cold tap, letting it run for a moment to clear, and took a long draught straight from the faucet. His footsteps and the sound of running water no doubt drew Mycroft’s attention, and he heard once more the distinctive three-tap knock followed by Mycroft’s terse, controlled voice calling his name. 

“Sherlock. Sherlock, open the door.” Sherlock considered, drumming his fingertips against the worktop. There was no chance his brother would leave without speaking to him; his distaste for Sherlock’s stubbornness was more than met by his measured patience. Striding to the door, he flung it open with a sigh.

“What?” Mycroft ignored his surly tone, looking him up and down with a raised eyebrow, glance lingering at his inner elbow, his no-doubt blood-shot eyes, and the vibrant bruising spread across the right side of his ribcage and hips. Evidence of the last time he used – twelve days ago – the hangover he was currently experiencing – banal, alcohol-induced – and the recent completion of a case with Lestrade – in which he’d been body-checked over a low brick wall in pursuit of the suspect.

With a measured sigh, Mycroft stepped past him into the flat. “Put some clothes on, Sherlock.”

Sherlock elbowed past him, striding imperiously into the tiny, cramped sitting room. “It’s my flat, Mycroft. I don’t have to.” Mycroft followed, silently, seemingly accepting Sherlock’s refusal – or at least choosing his battles carefully. He seated himself gingerly on the sofa, pushing aside a messy stack of newspapers. Sherlock frowned but dropped himself into the nearby armchair, sprawling languidly. 

Keeping his gaze firmly on Sherlock’s face, Mycroft placed a thin file on top of a precarious pile of papers, takeaway containers, and unopened post on the coffee table. “I have news for you. I’m afraid it’s not very pleasant.” Sherlock didn’t respond, so, after a moment’s pause, Mycroft continued. “It’s about Celia Isaacson.” 

Sherlock looked up sharply; he hadn’t spoken with Celia in over a year, though he’d received a photograph of the child in August, a wrinkled red mass with a dusting of dark hair, Celia’s distinctive clear hand spelling out the words ‘thank you’ on the back. Mycroft met his eye, his gaze unexpected. Sorrow, perhaps, confirming that this was not in fact good news, and trepidation. “I’m sorry to say Celia and Andreas were in a car accident four days ago. They didn’t make it.”

Sherlock nodded, frowning. The news was consistent with Mycroft’s gravity; Celia had been perhaps the closest thing Sherlock had to a friend in university and had a very sharp mind. Her life would be sorely missed in the scientific community. Sherlock found himself thinking, not of the last time he’d seen her, but of the Celia he’d known at Cambridge, full of bright-eyed, manic energy, in the lab at all hours when she wasn’t dragging him out of it for much-needed caffeine. 

There was more, though. Mycroft would have simply phoned him if the news were only Celia and Andreas’ deaths. “The child?”

Mycroft rolled his jaw and nudged the file closer toward Sherlock. Sherlock ignored it, raising one eyebrow pointedly. “The child – their daughter – wasn’t with them. She –” He was interrupted by the bedroom door banging open. Sherlock’s conquest stumbled out, jeans unbuttoned, feet bare, shirt dishevelled. 

He nodded toward Sherlock, eyes unfocused, not noticing Mycroft’s presence. Sherlock gestured impatiently toward the door, ordering in a bored tone, “Leave.”

“Alright, mate, just trying to find my shoes.”

“One under the sofa, one on the kitchen counter. Close the door on your way out.” The man found his shoes and pulled them on, grabbing his coat from the back of Sherlock’s chair. He reached toward Sherlock, as if to kiss him goodbye, but straightened abruptly at Sherlock’s glare. 

“Well, then, I’ll just be…” He glanced uncomfortably between the two silent men.

“Yes, yes, off you go.” Sherlock gestured again toward the door, and, with an incredulous huff, the man departed. As the door slammed shut behind him, Mycroft leaned forward in his seat, once more trying to give Sherlock the folder.

“As I was saying, the child, their daughter, is alive. According to the terms of their will, they have appointed you her legal guardian in the event of their deaths.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Sherlock snapped on impulse, before examining Mycroft more closely. He held himself stiffly, but not with the usual pompous posturing he adopted, the unyielding mass of an official used to imposing his will, nor with the imperiousness of an older brother. Rather, his body was tense with uncertainty, with doubt about his mission. 

Sherlock hadn’t seen such tension since Mycroft had picked him up after an imposed stint in rehab, heavy with the shared knowledge that Sherlock would be using again as soon as experiments and sex and midnight treks across the landscape of the city failed to keep the crushing boredom at bay. He was serious, and what’s more, he wasn’t sure how Sherlock would respond – or how he hoped he would respond. Mycroft shrugged minutely, confirming the truth in a markedly resigned fashion.

“I can’t possibly. Some other solution must be sought.”

“You were their choice. Besides, there’s no suitable next-of-kin.” He said it with a finality suggesting that he himself had done the investigation.

“There must be family.” Sherlock leaned over, groping under the chair for the discarded slipper he knew lurked there. Pinching its toe, he drew it out, pulling out a battered pack of cigarettes hiding within. Mycroft made a moue of disgust but Sherlock ignored him, placing one between his lips and lighting up.

“The nearest are an elderly retired couple, second cousins of Andreas. They’ve raised their children; they’re in no position to raise another.”

“And I am?” Sherlock’s voice rose, incredulous that his brother was even going along with this charade.

“You are her biological father.”

“So I must have some innate bond because we share DNA? Don’t be sentimental, Mycroft, it doesn’t suit you.” He flopped back in the chair dramatically, hands curling tight around the arms. He inhaled, cigarette glowing brightly where it tucked in the corner of his mouth. Mycroft pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“Don’t you feel any responsibility?” Sherlock looked up sharply at Mycroft’s tone, quiet and as near to pleading at Mycroft ever got.

Sherlock exhaled, smoke hanging heavy, and leaned back. “When I have ever?” Mycroft held his gaze for a moment before looking away, their shared history tangled in the smoke between them. Years of Sherlock acting out and Mycroft apologising, of Mycroft cleaning up once Sherlock got bored. Mycroft, they both knew, felt enough responsibility for the both of them. Resentment ran in their blood, it seemed sometimes.

“Sherlock…”

“I don’t want her. And for god’s sake it’s not like I have a place for her in my life.” He gestured wildly to the mess about them. There was barely room for a child’s cot in his flat, never mind a baby in his life. 

Mycroft stood, buttoning his jacket and looking down his nose at Sherlock, sprawled languidly in the chair. “She needs a home, Sherlock. Even one as…unconventional as you provide.” 

“Why don’t you take her, then? You’ve plenty of room in that estate of yours.” Mycroft looked away, his hands stilling where he had been straightening his cuffs. Sherlock watched his profile, saw his brows knit together, his lips downturn. Sadness. He’d barely known Celia – what was he mourning?

“It’s not what Celia wanted.” He picked up his umbrella from where it leant against the sofa. “The funeral’s next Tuesday,” he said and walked out, door shutting softly behind him.

Sherlock scratched the back of his neck, stretched long, the vertebrae in his back popping. He considered food, but his stomach churned, unsettled, so instead he lit another cigarette and moved to the sofa, wriggling to find a comfortable position, disquieted. A car accident: what a banal way to die. Unworthy of Celia, certainly, who should have lived through the very prime of her sharp mind. The world deserved no less.

His memories of her from university were much clearer than any made later: the crisp line of her jaw; her wide, laughing smile; her sharp, biting retorts; and her quiet attention, working next to him, each engrossed in their own experiments until one or the other would exclaim, with interest or disappointment, and the other would share in it. The kinship between them, forged at the workbench, went far deeper than anything else he’d experienced, and yet he cannot remember if she had developed crow’s feet, if she had worn a ring, if her freckles had faded or grown more numerous. 

The last few times they had met were hazy; he had been high sometimes, distracted by his own work others, and uninterested in her new-found domestic bliss. It hadn’t even been difficult to persuade him to donate his sperm. She’d been persuasive — deeply logical and not a small bit flattering — and Sherlock had much experience in being convinced by Celia. He had some recollection of her concern for his health, which he’d waved off with an alert smile and a digression about the demand for his eye at Scotland Yard. 

He did remember that she’d smiled, bright and indulgent, and kissed his cheek when they parted, handing him a folio with directions to the donation centre; he’d forgotten all about her request for three days until he rediscovered the glossy folder under three textbooks on poison on his dining room table, engrossed as he’d been in a particularly unusual case of fratricide. 

No one expects death, he knew, but the thought of Celia planning this — her daughter in his hands — left him ill-at-ease. He’d cared for her, certainly, but this — for this, madness was far too mild a word. He hoped, by next Tuesday, to have become embroiled in a very interesting case or, barring that, into some very high-quality cocaine.

++

The footsteps began at far too early an hour. Sherlock woke, bewildered, and walked into his sitting room to find his flat under siege for the second day in a row. The door, ajar, let through a sequence of neatly-suited young men and women, all carrying a frightful array of colourful boxes which they stacked in the sitting room. A pair of men in the sitting room, armed with box cutters and a set of allen wrenches, opened the boxes, which disgorged their hideous plastic contents all over his carpet, and began to assemble them with unsettling accuracy. A woman Sherlock recognised as Mycroft’s latest assistant inspected the drawers in his kitchen, taking copious notes on her phone.

“If this is Mycroft’s idea of a joke —” Sherlock said, voice raw with sleep; the intruders to his flat all ignored him except for the assistant, who looked up — and up, and raised an eyebrow at his total lack of clothing — and said, mildly, “I assure you it’s no joke, Mr Holmes.”

“Get out,” Sherlock said, dismissively, and she merely smiled.

“Under orders, I’m afraid,” she said, “and they supersede yours.” Sherlock glared, but she smiled back, pleasant and wide, and with a frustrated huff, he turned to inspect the rest of the battlement. One enemy combatant stocked his cupboard with very small jars of baby food; the two on the carpet had turned out what appeared to be a swing, a mobile, and a veritable mountain of simple, brightly coloured toys; a fully assembled cot was currently on its way to his bedroom; three different people, dressed in contamination suits, appeared to be scrubbing, hoovering, and disinfecting every surface in the flat.

“Stop!” Sherlock yelled, and beyond the slight ripple of a pause, the intruders ignored him and continued on their tasks. 

“It’s no use,” Mycroft said from the doorway. Sherlock gritted his teeth and refused to turn around. “They’ve been given strict instructions.”

“I’ve told you I don’t want it,” Sherlock said, flinching slightly as one of Mycroft’s minions gathered two months’ worth of mould samples from the fridge and dumped them into the bin.

“And I’ve told you it’s happening. The social worker is arriving at noon. I suggest you shower and dress and make yourself presentable.” 

“Fuck off, Mycroft.”

“No.” Mycroft’s voice, icy and on edge, cut into Sherlock’s stomach. Mycroft stepped behind him, grasping his shoulder. “I’m not ordering you, Sherlock, but —”

“Aren’t you?”

“Surely I’d know better by now,” Mycroft said dryly. 

“All evidence to the contrary.” Sherlock refused to turn around; Mycroft sighed and circled to face him. 

“I’m requesting, humbly, that you make an attempt.”

“Humility? From the great Mycroft Holmes? It is a fine day.” He shrugged Mycroft’s hand away and fell, sprawling, onto the sofa. “I told you I’m not interested.”

“She’ll be here at noon,” Mycroft repeated. “I’ve made all necessary arrangements for your mutual comfort and safety, and there are a number of carefully-vetted, scientifically sound books on child-rearing on your bookshelf.” Sherlock carefully kept his eyes on the ceiling. Mycroft shifted; the sound of his trousers resettling somehow lingered above the quiet din of the workers forcefully reshaping Sherlock’s life around him.

“Think of it as an experiment,” Mycroft said finally, his voice low, and Sherlock’s eyes snapped to his brother’s. “When will you ever be able to observe again the growth of human nature, before your very eyes?”

Sherlock laughed, the sound sharpish in the air between them. “You do know what I do with my experiments when I’m bored of them, don’t you?”

“You won’t be bored of her,” Mycroft said, with assurance, and Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “Just wait.” He dropped something soft on Sherlock’s chest and Sherlock watched, unsettled, as with one quick nod of his chin, Mycroft directed the dozen people out of Sherlock’s flat.

They left it more pristine than it had been when Sherlock moved in: surfaces gleaming, clutter put away, all of the frightful new additions organised. Sherlock sat up, undecided between tossing the lot of it out the window and ignoring it in favour of the stash currently in his bedside table. The object on his chest dropped to his lap and he picked it up, puzzled for a moment before recognition flooded in. 

The frayed nose and torn tail, the folded ear and belly rubbed bare, the stitched paw and bandaged head: his own teddy bear, his pirate companion lost at sea, his nighttime protector, his friend. He hadn’t seen that grizzled countenance in twenty years, at least. 

“Sentiment,” Sherlock said aloud, to the empty room, but he fingered the rubbed-soft paws. Standing, he didn’t drop the animal, but looked about the room, searchingly, before stalking to his own bedroom and throwing open the wardrobe doors. The bear he settled onto a shelf, nestled in with companions of boxed papers, a motley and crumpled assortment of hats, and a stuffed asp. 

He then went about systematically disassembling every new item in his flat.

++

By eleven, the flat had returned to its previous state of chaotic entropy, minus, unfortunately, two well-established experiments which would need to be completely begun again, and the communal skips at the back of his building had acquired quite the nursery. 

Having pulled on a desultory pair of pyjamas, Sherlock went for the _coup de grace_ , the icing on his particularly unsanitary cake, and opened the drawer to his bedside table.

It seemed, however, that Mycroft had anticipated him; the inlay wooden box which had held a vial of very pure cocaine hydrochloride and two sterile hypodermics now held a box of plasters and a packet of Nurofen. Mycroft’s sense of humour, as ever, was impeccable. 

Sherlock searched for the bottle of pills kept in the bathroom and the cigarettes in the slipper under his chair; the former held chewing gum and the latter a box of nicotine patches. Having lived relatively under his brother’s radar and clean enough to work, Sherlock had taken to keeping immediate amounts of stimulants on hand only, and his skin crawled with irritation at Mycroft, for having presumed, and himself, for having poorly planned.

With a huff, he slapped three nicotine patches on one arm and reclined on the sofa to await his visitors.

++

They were very punctual, knocking on the door at exactly one minute to noon. Sherlock ignored it. Mycroft knocked again, his tripartite rapping damnably familiar, and Sherlock stretched on the sofa and tucked his hands behind his head. The rapping stopped.

Sherlock’s phone chimed. _Open the door, or I’m sending Lestrade your latest blood sample_. Sherlock wasn’t sure if he had ever consented to Mycroft’s regular blood testing, a condition of his release from rehab, but it seemed to happen anyway, and given that they were rarely totally clean but Mycroft did nothing about it, they seemed a harmless whim. But Lestrade already bent the rules letting Sherlock in; he was far too deluded about Sherlock’s grand reformation to allow him to remain a consultant with proof of current use. 

It was, undoubtedly, a low blow, but Sherlock stood and walked, very slowly, to the door. His hand twitched, gripped in a fist, and he forced it to reach for the doorknob. In the open door frame, Mycroft smiled blandly at Sherlock, introducing him to “Ms Blakely, Imogen’s social worker.” Sherlock stood aside to let them in without a word.

Ms Blakely, to her credit, looked about the room efficiently, then walked briskly to the kitchen, leaving Sherlock and Mycroft alone in the sitting room. 

“Very clever, Sherlock.”

“Just fancied a bit of redecorating.”

Mycroft grimaced, saying in a hush, “Aren’t you taking this seriously?”

“Of course I am,” Sherlock said, “I’m quite serious about my desire to not be involved.”

Ms Blakely, having returned from an inspection of Sherlock’s room, cleared her throat. “You’ll need a cot, and the appropriate food and supplies, of course,” she said, and Sherlock frowned.

“You’re — you’re signing off on this?”

She blinked, unperturbed. “Mr Holmes, you have no idea the types of homes — if you can call them that — I encounter in this job. Your flat is clean, you seem healthy, if a bit —” She looked him up and down, taking in the worn pyjamas and dressing gown, and shook her head. “You have a steady source of income. You have familial support. All of this is far, far better than anything that awaits Imogen in the system.” 

Sherlock swallowed, and, sensing his discomfort if not the reason for it, Ms Blakely softened, gesturing to the paperwork on her clipboard. “Listen, your brother speaks highly of your intelligence and ability to adapt.” She nodded to Mycroft and Sherlock tried not to glower. This woman, of course, had no idea about his _intelligence_ or his _abilities_. “You’ll figure it out.”

“She’ll be a bright child,” Mycroft said, in an undertone. “Think of her life otherwise,” he added, and Sherlock hated him for using that against him. 

Ms Blakely looked between the brothers before flipping to a page in her paperwork and dashing off a signature. She held it open and passed it to Sherlock, handing him a pen. He gritted his teeth and looked down at the form. _I, the undersigned, do accept —_ The pen felt slick in his hand, and he was startled to realise that his palm was damp with sweat. Celia’s wide mouth, challenging him, and her sharp and happy eyes, and the steadiness of her hands as she titrated solutions all flooded his mind; his own hand shook. Without looking at Mycroft, he signed on the line and roughly pushed the clipboard back to Ms Blakely.

“Congratulations, Mr Holmes,” she said wearily. “You’re a parent.”

++

He could hear them coming from down the hallway, and had the door open by the time Ms Blakely arrived with the baby — with Imogen. She stepped through calmly, bouncing Imogen gently on one arm, the other encumbered with a black briefcase. The briefcase she deposited onto the worktop; the baby into Sherlock’s arms.

He took her with a startled, uncertain stiffness, unsure of his own body in a way that unsettled his skin, set his nerves crawling; in his hands, she heaved and cried. Ms Blakely walked briskly through the apartment, begrudgingly left clean after Mycroft’s people made a second pass, poking her head into the bedroom and bathroom, and Sherlock examined the small, angry person in his hands.

The dark, dark eyes were a surprise, but the unruly thatch of black hair was not. “Will she always be quite so — loud?” Sherlock said, over her angry wails. 

“She’s still adapting to the formula,” Ms Blakely said, nonplussed, watching him skeptically; his fingers curled around the small, squalling body, hooked under her arms, and held her at arms’ length. Sherlock watched as the angry flush spread across her neck and cheeks and forehead. “Holding her closer will be more comfortable. For both of you.”

“Not for my ears,” Sherlock retorted; Ms Blakely blinked at him. “Fine,” he said, and bent his elbows, pulling her closer. She kicked her feet, drumming her knees against his chest.

“Like this,” Ms Blakely said, reaching to adjust his hands. Sherlock held himself stiffly as she guided one palm to rest underneath Imogen’s bottom, placing the other on her back. His hand spanned across the small body, encompassing her tiny, sharp shoulder blades, which hitched with each great gasping sob, and curling around her heaving ribs. “Rub her back,” Ms Blakely said, and Sherlock rasped his hand up and down. “No, not quite — in circles.” 

The movement, slow, gentle circles, began to work; her wailing slowed to hiccoughs and fractured sobs, chest heaving against his in gasps as she tried to get her breath back. 

“There, you’ll get the hang of it,” Ms Blakely said, encouragingly, and Sherlock gritted his teeth.

“Of course I will,” he said. “She’s just a child; it’s hardly nuclear physics.” She snorted. 

“You have my card.” She gathered up her briefcase and folded her jacket over one arm. “Ring me if you have difficulties.”

“That’s it? You just give me a child and walk away? This hardly seems like the most precise system.”

She shrugged. “You seem to be one of the good ones, Mr Holmes. I hope you don’t prove me wrong.” She gave a final glance around the flat. “I’m pleased to see you picked up supplies.” 

Sherlock’s lip twitched up; the supplies she spoke of included a £700 pushchair with ergo-dynamic handles and all-terrain tyres; a set of very expensive wooden toys hand-carved and painted in Scandinavia; a limited edition Steiff teddy bear; a large box of organic baby food on the worktop; and, in the bedroom, a heritage cot of Brazilian hardwood with hand-combed organic cotton sheets. He found the process of outfitting his flat much less painful armed with Mycroft’s stolen credit card and the cooperation of three sales assistants at Harrods. 

“Yes, well,” he said, and found himself shrugging, strangely unwilling to make a joke at Mycroft’s expense. “Only the best,” he said, instead, and she raised one eyebrow at the biting tone.

“I’ll be back to check in next Thursday, then again the week after that. There’s a three-month probationary period, after which you may petition to be named her guardian officially or apply for adoption.”

“I don’t do paperwork,” Sherlock said, haughtily, and she snorted. 

“Would that we could all have your freedoms, Mr Holmes,” she said; the corner of her mouth tipped up just a bit. “I’ll stay in touch.” He nodded, briskly; the tip of his chin bumped against Imogen’s head, and she shifted against him. 

Ms Blakely lingered at the door for a long moment; he would call it sentiment, but for the sharp shrewdness of her eyes. With the door closed behind her, the flat seemed very quiet, at least until it was broken by Imogen, voicing a demanding little squall. 

He looked down at her face; her eyes, very dark, widened, and she waved one fist, thumping it against his chest, and sounded a soft grunt. Frowning, Sherlock rifled through the index he’d slowly been creating over the past two days in preparation for her arrival. He had little doubt her presence would be temporary, but recognised his own ignorance in the ways of infants and so had flipped through some of Mycroft’s least intolerable parenting tomes. _What to Expect When You’re Expecting_ had had a surprising, if informative, number of sections on mucus, nausea, bowel movements, and other phenomena experienced by the pregnant body, and had thus been relegated to the ‘scientifically-interesting-but-currently-irrelevant’ pile. The manual on childhood development and behaviour he had read cover-to-cover and noted a number of others in the bibliography to order. Myleene Klass’s pregnancy memoir he’d thrown out the window, though not without some surprise to note that one of Mycroft’s androids had a sense of humour.

His index turned up the most likely causes of disturbance: hunger, exhaustion, and waste elimination. Lifting Imogen up, he looked her in the eye. “There’s little dignity in this for either of us,” he said, and sniffed gingerly at her nappy. All smelt fine, and he breathed in relief to have that particular task postponed.

Pulled away from the warmth of his body, Imogen opened her mouth, making mewling noises; Sherlock would be more inclined to ascribe them to an angry cat were it not for the infant in his hands. “Fine, fine, no need to get in a strop. I do have supplies if you’re hungry.”

Though he had purchased a case of the finest organic whipped food — carrots, bananas, squash, all sorts — Ms Blakely’s brief on Imogen stated that she took formula as well, primarily as a replacement for Celia’s milk. Sherlock took a moment, when considering the question of food, to marvel at the human body. Her soft discontented whines turned oh-so-quickly into heated, huffy cries as Sherlock blustered his way around the kitchen, attempting to warm up a bottle. 

“Just be patient,” he murmured to her. “I know it’s intolerable, waiting on other people. Unfortunately, until your skeletal and muscular systems are suitably developed, I’m afraid you will be reliant on others — on, on me, I suppose, for now — for your general needs.” With one hand, he carefully began the process of threading the lid onto the bottle, but it caught crooked and sent the bottle skidding across the worktop, toppling and spilling formula across it and the floor.

“Fuck!” Imogen gave a sharp, gasping sob at Sherlock’s curse, then began her wailing anew, with refreshed lungs. “Oh, for the love of —” He tried to curl his hand up enough to pat her back but found, without bending quite far backwards, he couldn’t do that and keep her balanced. 

Dropping a towel to the floor and nudging it with his toes to mostly mop up the spill, Sherlock picked the bottle back up, setting it upright on the worktop and wiping the rim ineffectually with his hand. A small amount of formula remained in the bottom; he topped the bottle off with water and measured out the appropriate amount of powder. This time, he took more care in fastening the lid, and managed to get it on and shake the bottle properly. Running it under warm water, as one of his books had described, he contemplated the ideal way to warm formula easily and consistently. A self-warming bottle, perhaps — or an insert into the bottle that could mix and warm at once. He dabbed a little on his wrist and, satisfied, offered it to Imogen. 

She continued crying and ignored it. 

“I’ve your formula here,” he said. “If you are indeed hungry it would be in your best interests to take it.” Frowning, he nudged the nipple against her lips, and she shook her head away, face wrinkled into one red furrow of anger. “This is not at all logical,” he said, tucking the bottle against her lips again and watching as she wriggled away from it. Holding the small bottle in his hand, he touched her cheek with his thumb, and, startled, she opened her eyes and stared at him, mouth open but crying paused. He nudged the nipple of the bottle at her lower lip again and, this time, she moved her mouth against it. Encouraged, Sherlock held it closer, and, with startling ferocity, Imogen latched on and began sucking. 

“There you have it,” Sherlock said, pleased. “Wasn’t that easier?” Her wide, wet eyes blinked at him, one hand fisting and releasing in time with the suckling of her mouth. Carefully settling into the armchair, Sherlock rested Imogen against his leg and forearm, picking up one of the new child development books from the floor and beginning to read.

++

The nappy dilemma was not put off for long, unfortunately, but Sherlock managed well enough, peeling back her stripped leggings and unsnapping the small cotton bodysuit, and frowning with distaste as he opened the nappy up. “Would that evolution had discovered some way around this,” he said to Imogen, who kicked her feet free of the tangles of her leggings. She seemed disinclined to cooperate as he cleaned her up, wriggling this way and that and wholly ignoring his efforts to keep her still, but he did somehow get a new nappy on, fastened in a very near approximation of the original. 

Dressed once more, she stared up at him from the bathroom counter — swept momentarily clear of his own grooming supplies, and Sherlock made a note to purchase a changing table, a piece of furniture he’d deemed wholly unnecessary and likely to get in the way in the small flat during his shopping spree, despite the disagreement of the shop assistants — and kicked her feet in the air.

“What do I do with you now?” he asked, peering down into her dark eyes. She blinked at him, focusing. It was only mid-day and, without a case, he would usually keep himself occupied with one experiment or another, but his recent work had been cleared out by his blasted brother’s interference. What do babies do, all day?

While he contemplated, Imogen reached her small hands to her toes, not quite reaching, but managing to rock her body enough to roll near the edge of the counter. “Oh!” Sherlock cried, startled, managing to steady her body before she rolled off. “That was very unwise,” he said sternly, and her eyes widened. “Perhaps we can find a more logical place for you to practise your motor skills?”

She gurgled happily when he picked her up, and, once in the sitting room, he performed a cursory sweep of the small amount of open space in the middle of the floor before lowering himself to a crouch. 

“Now, you mustn’t move too far,” he said as he lifted her away from his shoulder and settled her, seated, onto the rug. “And don’t disturb my books.” She chomped her gums together, fingers fisted around her toes, and watched him as he stood up. 

“It won’t do,” he said, musing to himself. “You’ll certainly be bored, just sitting there.” He cast about, eyes alighting on one box he hadn’t yet opened. Lifting it, he sliced it open with the jack-knife kept handy on the mantle, and settled down on the ground next to Imogen, emptying the box of its contents. 

The contraption inside took a bit of wrangling before he managed to assemble it correctly, but he soon had a criss-crossed dome of fabric-covered struts to which he attached dangling soft toys that — vaguely — represented sea creatures. “These are hardly scientifically accurate,” he said to Imogen, who chewed on the fin of an orca with wide, cartoonish eyes. 

“I’m not entirely certain what you’re meant to learn,” he added, pushing a dangling octopus with one finger. It swung, tentacles wriggling, and its sewn-on grin didn’t falter. “Surely an interactive model of the cephalapod nervous system would be more enlightening, for example. Or observation from life of the octopus’s problem-solving behaviour.” Imogen pulled the orca away from her mouth, waving it in one fist. She watched the octopus swing slowly back and forth and, dropping the orca, she reached for it, grunting with frustration when realising she was too far away. 

She reached again, managing only, it seemed, to topple herself over, landing on her stomach; however, instead of fussing, she wriggled her elbows into the pile of the carpet and, with determined movement, slide her body forward an inch.

“Oh!” Sherlock said with surprise. “Yes, good — if you wish to have the octopus, you will need to come a bit closer.” Concentrating, Imogen kicked her feet against the floor, finding purchase to propel herself forward a bit more. Though it certainly was a painstaking process, she managed to wriggle her body onto the playmat and roll once more onto her back in order to reach up to tug on the octopus tentacles. 

“That was very well done,” Sherlock said, and Imogen happily ignored him. With her preoccupied, he stood to go to the kitchen, where he carefully washed his lab glassware and found, in the back of the crisper, a second sample of liver left over from one of the ruined experiments. The parameters had changed with the age of the liver, but he was fairly confident he could recreate it to still-useful standards. 

++

Sherlock stood; his back cracked as the vertebrae realigned themselves. The liver, even slightly aged, had taken well to his solutions, and he looked with pride at the precise array of samples spread across the table in individual petri dishes. He rolled his neck from side to side, breaking up the stiffness that came from — he checked his watch — three hours bent over the table. Filling a glass from the tap, he drank quickly, suddenly very aware of his parched throat, then filled it again and walked to the sitting room to set up a log of findings on his computer. 

Stepping around the coffee table, he stopped short — “Oh!” — nearly stumbling over the forgotten playmat. It was empty. Sherlock opened his mouth, then closed it again; calling for a five-month-old baby would hardly do any good. Instead, he swept his gaze across the room quickly, eyes scanning for her brightly-coloured leggings. 

Not a sight. Something in his stomach turned uneasily and he thought, quickly, of what he knew of her motor skills. She could shuffle, but not yet crawl or toddle, and tired quickly. Most likely hiding places, then, were under furniture. Dropping to his knees, he looked quickly under the sofa — nothing — then ducked to one shoulder to get a glimpse under his chair. There — a tiny foot and, as he looked closer, her striped leggings. 

Reaching with one arm, he managed to cup around her body and, very slowly, push her toward him. She didn’t move or struggle against him and the thing in his stomach twisted tighter. Finally, he shifted her enough that he could knock the chair back safely and get a better glimpse. Her eyes were closed and he pulled her, roughly, toward him, and, startled, she coughed then gave a very small sneeze. 

Sherlock exhaled; he hadn’t realised he was holding in his breath. He lifted her up, dusting off her clothes — he perhaps should maintain more thorough cleaning standards — and inspected her all over. Except for a carpet imprint on one cheek, she was unharmed. 

“That was very —” he started, but was unsure how to finish. She blinked her eyes open, then screwed them shut again against the sudden light, and made a discomfited squall. He brought her closer to his body, cradling her in one arm so he could see her face and said, mostly to himself, “That was quite unsettling.” 

++

Though still uncertain of what habits, exactly, babies were supposed to cultivate on a quotidian basis, Sherlock began to work out those which seemed to suit Imogen. A great deal of sleeping — in her cot, curled on a blanket on the floor, or tucked against Sherlock’s chest as he reclined on the sofa — the usual bodily functions, more deftly managed as each day progressed, and an effort to touch, and if possible chew on, every object in the flat. 

The second day, he attempted pureed carrots as a supplement to her bottle. She only ate minuscule spoonfuls, seeming quite content to let much of the food dribble out of her mouth, but still seemed happy enough with what did make it to her stomach. Her feedings, which seemed to take intolerably long hours, often reminded himself of his own bodily needs, and he took to eating a bit of toast or beans along with Imogen. 

The weekend passed quickly enough. Sherlock monitored the state of his liver samples every six hours, though tried to avoid allowing himself to become enraptured with the study to the exclusion of all around him; he didn’t fancy another game of hide-and-seek with a barely mobile infant. The flat began to smell of talcum powder and stewed carrots, and Sherlock threw open the windows at every occasion, blowing smoke into the cold January air. 

Her small body astounded him: a knowledge of the facts of human growth seemed terribly insufficient when faced with fingernails the size of matchstick heads and her still-soft skull. Besides her ability to scoot across the floor, she displayed a small array of motor skills, most of which seemed to delight her in their very novelty; when she grabbed her toes she giggled, a flop to her stomach produced a very satisfied grunt, and her gummy smile when she pulled herself to sitting by tugging on Sherlock’s fingers was very wide indeed. 

The air around them seemed a suspended state, closed off from the world, and Sherlock walked through it with difficulty, like stepping through custard. At moments, the startling clarity of another life, dependent upon him, would stop him stock-still, while at others, the reassurance that this existence was only temporary was all that kept the angry itch of his skin at bay. 

++

Tuesday dawned bright and clear: a horrid day for a funeral, if what little fiction Sherlock consumed taught him anything. It should be streaming outside, great lashings of rain requiring mourners to huddle the grave site as a grim garden of bleak black umbrella-flowers. He wouldn’t go, of course, and, as if declaring it to the very air in the flat, he and Imogen both spent the entire morning in their pyjamas. Though, to be fair, with infant’s clothing it was sometimes difficult to tell the difference.

The expected knock came at half-past three. Sherlock lay on the sofa, Imogen draped across his chest and a medical journal held at eye level above his head. Dropping the magazine beside him, he fumbled for his phone, and thumbed out a message one-handed.

_Go away._

Mycroft’s response came within seconds. _You didn’t attend._

_Well spotted. Go away._

The sound of a key in the lock; Sherlock cursed himself for not leaving on the deadbolt. He decided against getting up, hoping Imogen, asleep, might stay his brother’s annoying voice for once.

“Sherlock —” Then again, perhaps not.

“I’ve a sleeping child, or can’t you see?” Sherlock said in a stage whisper. Imogen breathed deeply against his chest. Mycroft frowned.

“You should have been there,” he said, low. “It would have been the proper thing —”

“What do I care about proper?” Sherlock interrupted. “Seeing them put in the ground will make it no more or less real, and I’ve no wish to meet their friends.”

“Their daughter at least —”

“She’s five months old,” Sherlock said with scorn. “She’d hardly remember.”

“That’s not why,” Mycroft said; his voice dripped with familiar, hateful, disappointment. 

“I don’t care,” Sherlock repeated, dropping his phone back to the table. “Their funeral has absolutely no bearing on my life, and their daughter will hardly be with me long enough for me to parade her around to their friends, the blessed orphan.”

Mycroft blinked. His hand tightened, almost imperceptibly, on the handle of his wholly-unnecessary umbrella. “If that’s how you feel,” he said, with a coolness barely borne out by his stiff composure.

“You know it is.”

“I had hoped —” Mycroft began, and Sherlock cut in, “I do know what you hoped, Mycroft, and it’s simply not going to happen. It should become quite clear to all involved that I’m hardly the best caretaker, at which point an alternate solution shall be sought.”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow, looking pointedly at the contentedly sleeping baby. “If you say so, brother.” He tapped the tip of his umbrella against the floor and turned briskly. He gave merely a cursory glance around the flat as he left, corner of his mouth twitching just slightly, and closed the door behind him. 

“Damn him,” Sherlock said under his breath. He wanted to throw something, so he flung the journal over the back of the sofa. Unsatisfying. He could read every expression that crossed his brother’s face, and that twitch — that cursed twitch — was Mycroft self-satisfied with a plan pulled off. Surely it wasn’t, though. Surely it would be self-evident, Sherlock’s unsuitability, at Ms Blakely’s next visit. He muddled by, certainly, but basic attendance to bodily needs was hardly the best example of parenting skills. He wasn’t — he couldn’t be — her proper guardian. 

He caught himself stroking along her back, and, startled, drew his hand away. “I’m not your parent,” he said, ducking his chin so he could see the top of Imogen’s head. She didn’t stir. “I’m not — this is only temporary, so you should not make yourself comfortable.” He knew what Mycroft would say, with his horribly old-fashioned ideas about biological progeny and the passing of the family name. In fact, Sherlock was quite surprised that Mycroft hadn’t yet taken himself a society wife and begotten her with a few heirs, despite his sexuality, just to further the Holmes name and intellect. 

Biological imperative should dictate his actions, were evolution that simple. His DNA was half of all she was, and he should want it to continue. He didn’t _not_ want it to, but — the thought of her death at his hands was sickening, certainly, but that was humanity, surely, not parenthood. For all he tried to rise above the squalid, small concerns of human life, he had no urge to harm or kill or be the cause of death, however inadvertently. 

She curled one fist into the fabric of his shirt. He sighed. “I’m not the one you should hold onto,” he said, not quite knowing what he meant. “I’m only doing this because you cannot take care of yourself.”

She slept on.

++

This was hardly the first time he had barricaded himself in his flat for a whole week, though with the new — temporary — inhabitant, needs extended slightly beyond the occasional take-away order. As it turned out, though, Amazon delivered nappies and for a tenner Miguel, a savvy sixteen-year-old who often played his guitar for coins at the entrance to the Tube on Sherlock’s street, was happy to run down to Tesco and bring back baby food. Sherlock had tried, once, to go out with Imogen in his arms, but his progress had been intolerably stalled by every stranger who wanted to coo over her, by her squirming discomfort in the cold wind, and finally was cut short by the need for a new nappy.

He did file away the responses of all strangers encountered, though, and kept a thought at the back of his mind as to how she might prove a worthwhile distraction if needed.

On Wednesday he solved two cases with just a back-and-forth of email. His name was slowly circulating, but as of now his non-police cases were still maddeningly few and absurdly simple. Adultery, theft, insurance scams: all easily resolved and exorbitantly charged, mostly out of spite.

By Thursday, the cooped-up winter air had begun to hold the foetid aroma of damp, and Sherlock threw open a window at his back while he typed at the kitchen table, after jamming a woolly hat onto Imogen’s head. Wishing to avoid any more incidents of Imogen crawling where she needn’t be, Sherlock had rigged up some bits of soft webbing into a makeshift harness, looping it around Imogen’s middle and under her arms, then attaching the end of the lead to one leg of the table. He moved the kitchen table forward until he could see the floor of the sitting room while he worked, and Imogen quite happily explored her small radial space. He thought, distantly, of attaching a bell as well.

The knock came, once more, precisely at noon. Sherlock opened it, ignored Ms Blakely’s greeting, and sat back down at the table. Mycroft followed the social worker in, one eyebrow raised, and sniffed delicately. Sherlock typed a little louder.

Ms Blakely crouched on the floor next to Imogen, who scooted over to her eagerly, patting her hands on the tips of Ms Blakely’s shoes. “Very...industrious,” she commented, holding up the lead attaching Imogen to the table, and Mycroft stifled a sigh. “She’s very mobile for her age; that’s good.”

 _Good,_ Sherlock thought, _was a matter of opinion._

She unhooked the toggle at the back of the harness, lifting Imogen up and giving her a cursory inspection. Tickling under her chin, she looked in her mouth when she broke wide with giggles, and tugged on her hand like a game, testing her muscular strength. 

“She’s gained a bit of weight,” Ms Blakely observed, and Sherlock said, automatically, “Five ounces.” Mycroft ducked his chin, hiding a smile, and Sherlock added, “And you’ve gained twice that since I last saw you, brother.”

Mycroft narrowed his eyes: more than enough confirmation. Having finished her examination, Ms Blakely held Imogen out to Mycroft, who drew back a step when realising her intent.

“I —” he began, and she took another step toward him, saying, “I need to inspect the rest of the house. Besides, it’s crucial that I observe everyone who might come in frequent contact with the child, and, as Mr Holmes’s closest family and most fervent supporter, you are included.”

Exhaling sharply through his nose, Mycroft held his hands out stiffly. Sherlock attempted to bite back a grin at the cautious way he cradled Imogen, held away from his body. “Would you like to feed her?” Sherlock asked, with a saccharine smile, and through his teeth, Mycroft accepted. 

Sherlock handed him a jar of pureed peaches and a spoon, and, as usual, Imogen spat out as much as she swallowed, leaving Mycroft with a spatter of mashed fruit and saliva across his bespoke waistcoat. 

Ms Blakely emerged from the bedroom making some notes in Imogen’s file. She eyed Mycroft but, beyond a slight, amused purse of the lips, didn’t comment. “All seems in relatively good shape,” she said. “Have you been getting her outside a bit, for some fresh air?”

“Too many idiots outside,” Sherlock responded. Mycroft attempted to discreetly rub the baby food off his waistcoat with a handkerchief, and, with a sigh, Sherlock took Imogen from him. She stretched her hands toward the keyboard, and, frowning, Sherlock moved the chair back enough to keep the laptop safe. 

“Could do with a bit of a pick-up,” Ms Blakely said, “and you’ll have to baby-proof before long, with the way she gets about. But I’ll sign off for another week. She seems — happy,” she concluded, and Sherlock looked down at Imogen, who chewed quite contentedly on the side of her hand. He had been quite certain he would not live up to Social Services’ — apparently not very high — standards, and that Imogen would be well out of his life by today. 

It appeared, however, not to be the case. Imogen curled her free hand around his index finger, warm and wet and a bit sticky from her meal, and he swallowed. He wanted, very much, to ask if she was quite certain, if she really believed — but he wouldn’t, especially not with Mycroft’s smug face right there. 

“Fine,” he said instead, and signed the proffered form with his free hand. He said no goodbyes, but Ms Blakely seemed unperturbed by it, and left with just a nod to Mycroft and the door softly closing behind her. 

“You’re free to leave as well,” Sherlock said, sickly-sweet, and Mycroft cleared his throat and settled into a chair across from him. 

“You’ve been doing remarkably well,” Mycroft said.

“Do try to sound more surprised.” Sherlock let sarcasm drip from his words, with more bravado than he perhaps felt. He moved Imogen to his other leg and jiggled it; she shrieked with the movement and patted his knee excitedly. 

“Have you given a thought to what she’ll call you?”

“She can’t speak, Mycroft.”

“She’ll be able to soon enough,” Mycroft retorted; if she developed as the books said, this was true. She already could make some nonsensical sounds, though had yet to connect them with any concrete objects.

“Well then, Sherlock, I expect. If the time comes,” he answered, bouncing his knee rhythmically.

“Sherlock, really,” Mycroft said, exasperated. “You can’t have a child that calls you by your first name.”

“I don’t see why not.”

“It’s not what people do. People will find it strange. If you want to keep her –”

“I don’t, though,” Sherlock said, mildly and matter-of-fact. He looked impassively at Imogen as she gurgled, wriggling with the movement of his leg. “You know that.”

“I’d hoped, by now…”

Sherlock shrugged. “She’s not unpleasant, most of the time. But I have no desire to be shackled to her for the rest of my life.” He wiped a bit of drool off her chin. “I still don’t understand why you persist in continuing to encourage this farce.”

Mycroft swallowed, grip tightening on the edge of the table. “Because you need her, brother.”

Sherlock’s leg stopped and the room fell silent for one long moment before Imogen let out a wail. With a sigh, Sherlock began once more to bounce her up and down. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“When was the last time you took anything?” Mycroft raised an eyebrow and Sherlock glared. 

“That’s a specious argument and you know it. I’ve been far too busy lately –”

“Yes; raising a child.” Sherlock closed his mouth. He narrowed his eyes at his brother, who glanced away, politely inspecting the handle of his umbrella.

“Just to be clear,” Sherlock said, slowly, “you would risk this child’s life just to control mine?”

Mycroft’s lip twitched. “I would do anything to protect you, dear brother. I thought you knew that.”

Sherlock flinched. “I was right; families are a weakness.”

“But oftentimes a necessary one.”

He snorted. “Clearly, for see how happy it’s made the pair of us.” Sherlock could hear the clenching of Mycroft’s jaw from across the table. “I hope you know,” Sherlock said, fully aware that he already had Mycroft’s attention, “I won’t allow you to control my life through her. I’d sooner throw her to wolves.” 

Mycroft straightened his cuffs and stood, smoothing his trousers. “I’m sure you think that,” he said, with infuriating calmness, and tipped his chin. “I’ll see you again, very soon,” he said, and Sherlock narrowed his eyes. At the soft thud of the door closing behind Mycroft, Imogen made a disgruntled gurgle and, wearily, Sherlock started bouncing her again.

++

On Saturday, the rain pounded hard outside his window; Sherlock woke with a headache from the drop in barometric pressure and Imogen squalled all day, likely feeling the same. By the early evening, Sherlock’s very nerves itched with the confinement, frayed and harried from Imogen’s constant fussing.

Usually, he’d mask the itch with cocaine, maybe visit a club and let the heavy pounding of music wash over his skin. He’d bring someone back, fuck them, feel the precise and known responses of his body replace the disquiet. 

Mycroft had swept his whole stash, and Sherlock had not yet bothered to procure anything new; he usually kept cocaine on hand just long enough to use it, and only used every other week or so, preferring the comfort of cigarettes and coffee on a daily basis. The cigarettes he had replaced, though he had only smoked a few over the nine days Imogen had been with him, knowing enough not to smoke with her in his arms. 

He could just — he only needed a little, just one hit — he could call Garrett and meet him somewhere, it’d only take half an hour, tops, and Imogen was finally sleeping. He thumbed the side of his phone. The rest he could do without — the club and the noise and the sex — if he could just get something that could wash over the itch. He could have a wank, even, and the orgasm might help, endorphins mingling with the stimulants to jerk him out of the dank recesses of his mind and into something clearer, more pure. 

It’d be good for Imogen, too, he thought: after, he’d be calmer, more productive, and surely have the patience she required. He lifted his phone, keyed through his contacts.

Garrett would come straight to his flat, he knew, but he didn’t want to let him in, to give him that access: the only thing he trusted the man for was high-quality product, and that only because he had enough dirt on Garrett to turn him in at any time, and would. Instead, he texted the names of a junction a five minute walk away.

Garrett obligingly brought two new sterile needles, which Sherlock tucked into his pocket next to the small vial, and passed over a fold of banknotes. “Always a pleasure,” Garrett said, tipping his chin as he turned and walked away. That was his other value: no questions, no small talk.

++

Back at the flat, Sherlock looked in on Imogen briefly, thankful to see that she slept on, snug in her cot. In the kitchen, he injected distilled water into the vial, shaking it gently to dissolve then drawing out a precise amount. He left the vial on the worktop and settled himself on the sofa, crooking his elbow and flexing. The vein was easy to find: he’d only ever used like this, preferring to keep the mucous membranes of his nasal passages unharmed, as scent was a particularly useful sense in his line of work. 

The drug flushed through his veins with speed and, as predicted, he felt it overtake the dreadful itch, suffusing his nerves with an eager energy. He dropped the syringe to the coffee table and stood. 

All day he’d been listless, annoyed with Imogen’s wailing and unable to focus. Now, he picked up his laptop and opened it to the log for his latest two experiments: the liver samples, in their final stages, and a fascinating dissection of an eyeball affected by a rare form of juvenile macular degeneration.

++

He next looked up from his laptop and tissue samples when a cry rent the air. He blinked; the sun-lightened sky showed through the small window over the sink and the screen in front of him was completely filled with his findings. The cry came again, and he remembered, quite suddenly, Imogen in her cot in the bedroom. Frowning, he stood — his legs beneath him unsteady — and went to tend her.

Her red-faced cries rang in his ears and he gritted his teeth against the intrusion. Replacing her nappy helped bring the crying down to a low sob, and the introduction of a bottle calmed her entirely. He stood in the kitchen as she suckled, holding her absently in one arm. The second needle and mostly empty bottle of cocaine hydrochloride solution still sat on the cutting board. 

Outside, rain still poured. Sherlock scratched at the back of his neck, his arm, his hand: the all-too-familiar awareness of his body returning always set his skin on edge. He stared at the small vial. Imogen sucked fervently at her bottle. 

Decidedly, he put the vial into the refrigerator, drawing out instead a jar of creamed squash, which he patiently scooped into Imogen’s mouth once she finished the bottle. After, thankfully, she settled enough to play under her mobile, tugging at the octopus and giggling madly when it sprung away from her. 

Sherlock sat back down at the table, looking over his findings, but his eyes blurred on the figures and his fingers drummed against the table’s edge, restless. His skin was hot, too tight. To distract himself, he attempted to catalogue the discomfort: heat rushing through the follicles, glands, and vessels of his dermis, blood running high, and his epidermis clearly too small, drawn tight. 

He flexed his hands. He wouldn’t use the rest, not right away, and not, he thought distantly, while Imogen was awake. The single-minded energy it provided did not lend itself well to tending to her needs, he suspected, though he surely felt better for having had a night of accomplishment. Surely. 

Instead, he checked to see that Imogen still played happily, then settled himself into the armchair, turned slightly away to face the mantle instead of Imogen’s newly-designated play area, and drew down the zip of his trousers. Bringing them down below his hips, he brought his cock out from the slit in his trousers.

It was soft, and warm in his hand, and its texture and heat were a lodestone he brought his mind to focus on. He tugged slowly, lazily, making his mind feel every movement, cataloguing the way his cock began to fill. As it hardened, he stroked with a bit more intent, rolling his thumb deliberately and feeling the expansion of the dorsal artery, the retraction of his foreskin over the glans. His movements were familiar, with purpose, and he kept his mind firmly on the sensation, uninterested in falling into fantasy. 

It did, in fact, have the desired purpose: with a stifled groan he came, lifting his hips off the chair and catching the ejaculate into his hand, and, when he fell back, for a long, glorious moment all sensation in his body was the gentle suffusion of pleasure. 

Even the cold discomfort as he tucked himself away and the stickiness of his hand were welcome over the strange, vexing itch, and as he stood and cleaned up he felt more bright-minded than he had earlier. Imogen still wriggled happily on her back and he sat on the floor next to her, for a moment envious of her simple pleasure.

Seeing him, she reached, and, with a movement quickly becoming familiar, she turned herself to her stomach and began to wiggle her way toward him. He waited, patiently, for her to reach him, then helped her to sit up, then stand. Her gleeful giggles at the surprise of standing, even fully supported, made him crack an involuntary grin. 

“Yes, you are quite the clever one,” he said, dryly, as she reached one hand forward to grab at his shirt. He shifted to allow her room to move forward in something less akin to walking than to a shuffling drag; his hands, hooked under her arms, held her upright even as she pitched herself forward toward him. He watched her discover the movements of her feet, her knees, her legs, and hoped for something to come along to break the tedium.

++

His mobile rang; leaping from the sofa, he flung it open, letting out a crow of glee at Lestrade’s text. _Need you. Bad one. Howberry Road, Edgware._ He pulled his coat on, slamming the door to the closet behind him with one heel and texting back. _Ten minutes. Don’t touch anything. –SH_ He had just reached the front door when a high wail sounded from the bedroom.

Hand on the doorknob, Sherlock paused. Another cry rent the air. His jaw tensed and he forced himself to exhale. Another wail. With a sigh, he turned and went back to the bedroom. In her cot, Imogen kicked her feet, tiny face screwed tight and red. Gingerly, Sherlock picked her up, hands tucked under her arms, fingers wrapping halfway around her body. Taking a breath, she stopped crying long enough for her blinking eyes to focus on him, then, opening her mouth wide, set off again. 

Sherlock held her up, doing his best to ignore the screaming while he tried to remember the various things it might be indicative of. Lifting her up, he sniffed gingerly at her nappy. Baby powder and Sudocrem. She’d just been sleeping, so presumably it wasn’t exhaustion. He’d only just fed her before she went down for her nap, only – he glanced at the clock. Oh. 

“Fine,” he said to her still-wailing face. “I’ll feed you and take you with me. But you’d best learn to keep up.” She stopped long enough to inhale raggedly, the sound raw and wet, before exhaling forcefully. Tucking her awkwardly in the crook of his arm, Sherlock set out to heat up formula. 

Settling the bottle in her mouth, Sherlock watched as Imogen latched greedily onto the nipple, tiny fingers clenching into reddened fists as she sucked. With a satisfied nod, he started toward the door, her body balanced on his forearm and one long thumb wrapping around her leg and pressing the bottom of the bottle in place, leaving his other hand free to negotiate the door and, when on the pavement, to hail a cab.

“Howberry Road,” he said brusquely, settling into the seat awkwardly. The cab didn’t move. Sherlock looked up, finding the cabbie’s impatient eyes staring back at him. 

“You need a car seat for that one.”

“What?”

The man’s eyes widened perceptibly, then he frowned. “Are you daft? It’s not safe, just holding a baby like that in a car. I’ve got kids. You need a car seat.” Sherlock blinked; the man drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. “I’m not going unless you have one.”

“I –” Sherlock closed his mouth, and opened the door. He jogged up the steps, shoving the door open impatiently. Somewhere, he thought as he unlocked the flat, there was a carrier one of the Harrod’s sales assistants had said could double as a car seat. He surveyed the sitting room before catching a glimpse of plastic half-tucked under the kitchen table. He scooped it up and settled Imogen into the cushioned seat; she blinked back up at him for one long moment before her forehead wrinkled up and her tiny mouth opened. Anticipating the inevitable wail, Sherlock quickly moved her bottle back in place and, surprised, she latched on without protest; he hefted her up and pounded back down the stairs.

++

The cab pulled to a stop at the edge of the crime scene tape. The cabbie peered up the street. “You sure this is the right place, mate?”

Sherlock already had one hand on the door handle, and shoved a handful of notes through the divider before stepping out. He was about to close the door when the cabbie yelled, “Oi! Your baby!”

Sherlock blinked and ducked his head back through the door without a word. He struggled with the seatbelt for a moment before it released the car seat then, gently as he could, lifted the whole contraption and walked backwards until he had it out the door. Closing it with his heel, he peered down into the seat; the movement of the car seemed to have lulled away Imogen’s earlier state of frustration, and she slept, pink cheeked and snotty-nosed, with tiny fists curled into her blanket.

He didn’t remember when she’d stopped crying.

The constable guarding the perimeter knew him, and it was a testament to the stranger things he’d brought to crime scenes in the past that the man’s eyes widened only slightly as he raised the tape for Sherlock to pass under. 

Lestrade, on the other hand, had no such reticence. 

“What the bloody hell is that?” He gestured impatiently to the car seat as Sherlock stepped across the threshold into the foyer. Sherlock ignored him; instead, he glanced around: no signs of a struggle, no bloodstains, no forced entry, an overabundance of family photos on the mantle, just visible through the door to the sitting room, a cluster of paperwork spread across the dining room table, and the presence of a cat. A family, one child, dead — not just the child, the mother, look at Lestrade’s collar; the father having trouble in his job and desperate for someone to notice; the mother doting, but not on him.

“Sherlock —” Lestrade had, Sherlock registered distantly, said his name more than once. “What are you playing at?”

“Shh.” Sherlock held up one finger. “I’m told it’s a bad idea to wake a sleeping baby.” Lestrade’s eyes went comically large and, behind him, Sally coughed. 

“You’re not telling me —” She leant in, around Lestrade, to peek into the carrier. “Jesus. Boss, he’s actually got a baby in there. Christ.” Lestrade looked from Sally to Sherlock to the carrier, leaning forward to get a better look.

“What the —” Lestrade dropped his voice. “Where did you get a bloody baby?”

“She’s mine,” Sherlock said, keeping his voice low and modulated. He gently rotated his wrist, keeping the carrier in a slow rocking movement which, he hoped, might imitate some of the soothing features of a moving vehicle. He stepped into the dining room, careful to keep his feet at the edge of the carpet, and dropped to a squat to examine underneath the table. He held the carrier aloft slightly with one hand.

“Sherlock,” Lestrade said, his voice dropped to the patient, slightly bewildered tone he used when he thought Sherlock misunderstood some basic nicety that he was, rather, in fact, simply ignoring. “Stealing a baby doesn’t make it yours.”

Rolling his eyes, Sherlock stood and walked past Lestrade and down the hallway. Back entrance leading to a small garden. Garden, fenced from the neighbours. Doorway to the kitchen, scuffed at the bottom and ajar. Lestrade followed. 

“Seriously, Sherlock, what’s going on?”

Sherlock opened the door to a small storage cupboard: general cleaning supplies, mop, broom, etc; winter coats indicating the child’s age of 9, a boy; some gardening tools, recently used.

He closed the door; Lestrade hovered at his elbow. “She’s mine,” he reiterated, and pushed past him. 

It took Lestrade the span of five strides to register the words; Sherlock was back in the foyer by the time he called out, “What?!”

“My biological offspring,” Sherlock said, calmly, and Sally echoed Lestrade’s, “What?!” with possibly more indignant shock.

“I don’t understand —” Lestrade started as he rounded into the foyer behind Sherlock. “Why have you — and where — and who is —”

“It’s temporary,” Sherlock said, sharply, and took to the stairs. He wasn’t yet finished on the ground floor, but he needed to escape from Lestrade’s hounding uncertainty. 

“What the hell does that mean?” Sally asked. Sherlock ignored her, continuing.

“Oi! You can’t take a baby in there!”

Sherlock stopped halfway up the stairs and looked over his shoulder. “You watch her, then.”

“I’m not taking care of your bloody —” Sally waved at the car seat, sharp on his heels. “I have a job to do!”

“Ah, so you’ve discovered a purpose beyond the merely decorative? Or have you decided to promote yourself from simply an annoyance to a hindrance?” 

“Piss off, Holmes — just —” She huffed, and Sherlock could tell she wanted to say more, wanted to curse him and flay him alive, and, though it was somehow more palpable, more frustrated than usual, her anger toward him, he ignored her and continued up the stairs. Sally dropped back and stayed in the foyer, and, with a breaking exhale, turned to walk out the door, hopefully to take her foul mood out on someone else.

Lestrade followed him up the steps, gone mercifully silent. At the top landing, the scene of crime officer and team worked, very silently, in one room; Sherlock could just see through the door a splash of blood across the carpet. He made to step forward but Lestrade’s hand at his elbow arrested his movement. Imogen’s carrier bumped sharply against his knee, and she woke with a startled, hiccoughing gasp. 

“Oh, now you’ve —” Sherlock lifted the carrier enough that she could she him; he’d noticed that human faces seemed to comfort her when first awakening. She blinked, then sneezed, spraying snot across her chest and — he noticed with distaste — on his shirt. 

Sherlock rubbed at it with the back of his free hand, but Lestrade didn’t seem to have noticed. “It’s a grisly one, this,” he was saying, and Sherlock wiped ineffectually at Imogen’s nose, making a note to bring some of those wet wipes with him in future. “No one would think you — less, or anything — if you wanted to sit it out.”

“What?” Sherlock asked, annoyed. “Why on earth would I want to do that? Provided it’s not boring.”

The laugh, when it came, was grim and raw. “It’s far from that. It’s — I’ve not been on many cases like it. Thank god.” Sherlock blinked. “It’s, it’s a child in there, and his mother, Sherlock,” Lestrade said, and Sherlock’s lip twitched to have his previous deduction confirmed, and Lestrade’s eyes narrowed.

“It’s a goddamn blood bath, okay, and my team is worn sick with it, so if you’re going to be a twat, I’ll kick you off right now.” Sherlock inhaled, sharply.

“Understood,” he said, and turned to the room.

“Wait — Sherlock —” Mustering his patience, Sherlock stopped again. “The baby.” At Sherlock’s silence, he gestured. “Give it here; you can’t — that’s not a place for a child.” Sherlock didn’t mention the presence of the dead boy in that room beyond. “I’ll take it — him — her?”

“Her,” Sherlock confirmed, and handed Lestrade the carrier. He took it with assurance, though still eyed Sherlock cautiously, and Sherlock took two more steps toward the scene before Lestrade interrupted again.

“What’s her name?”

“Imogen,” Sherlock said and stepped into the room.

Bloodbath was a fairly accurate description; blood soaked into the carpet, streaked the walls, coagulated on every horizontal surface in the small master bedroom. On the bed, the two bodies of the boy and mother lay in rigid lines; the arrangement of their bodies, streaks in the blood covering their clothing, and trails of blood criss-crossing the floor indicated they had been killed on the floor — standing? — and moved to the bed. 

He moved around the perimeter of the room. The hilt of a knife just showed in the shadowed, bloody mess of the mother’s abdomen, shoved in deep enough to go past the guard. Hushed, the air in the room was just edging on too-warm and thick with the sour reek of blood. The evidence collection team moved silently, taking swabs and samples with a deliberate, near-reverent gentleness. 

Once he’d seen as much of the room as he could without disturbing evidence, Sherlock stepped out to find Lestrade, still in his blue contamination suit, bouncing Imogen gently at his shoulder. One hand cupped the back of her head, dwarfing it, and rubbed the downy black hair in gentle circles. What Sherlock could see of her face was quiet and content. 

Hearing his footsteps, Lestrade turned, rubbing his eyes with the back of one hand, the other still bracing Imogen’s body. His eyes were red-tinged and wet, Sherlock was surprised to notice, and his lip bitten raw. 

“Can you help?” he said, voice very low and hoarse. 

Sherlock nodded briskly. “Statistics would suggest it is the woman’s husband — or the boy’s father,” he added, “if they’re not the same individual.”

“We have no reason to think so,” Lestrade said, “but we’re still getting information on the family.” 

“Has he been informed yet?”

“No. He’d already left his office. We’re tracking him down now.”

“Email me everything,” Sherlock said. “I’ll need a look at the papers on the table before I go.” 

Lestrade nodded, saying, “Of course,” while Sherlock stepped past him to the staircase. “Wait — don’t you — you need to take —” He nodded his chin toward Imogen, who snuffed, content in sleep. His broad hand still stretched across her back. 

“Bring her down for me,” Sherlock said, starting down the steps. “I’ll need my hands free.” Lestrade snorted but followed him down the steps, first telling one of the constables to bring the carrier down after him.

Sherlock flipped through the papers, memorising their location and order while taking in the contents. He snapped a few pictures on his phone of key details and began to formulate his next steps. None of them, unfortunately, were very amenable to the presence of a baby. 

“Would you like to keep her?”

“What?”

“Just for an hour or two, while I make some enquiries.”

Lestrade stared at him. “It’s a crime scene.”

“Holding her calms you down,” Sherlock countered, and Lestrade scoffed.

“Babies are nice,” he conceded, “but I have work to do; I can’t mind your — is she really yours?”

Sherlock waived his hand dismissively. If Lestrade wouldn’t mind her, he’d have to find someone else who could. He flipped quickly through his mental lists of people who owed him a favour, landing on two likely possibilities, and, with that sorted, shrugged at Lestrade. “Fine, give her here. I’ll text you once I’ve found him.”

Lestrade merely raised an eyebrow, far too used to Sherlock’s feats to be surprised over his self-assured statement. Turning to the constable behind him, who held the carrier in two hands, looking between the two men like one or the other might burst into flames, Lestrade nestled Imogen back into her blankets, buckling the straps. Taking the carrier, he handed it to Sherlock, but not before saying, “I’ll need the full story, you know. All of it, the truth.” 

Sherlock nodded, wrapping his hands around the handle and taking the carrier. 

++

The papers Sherlock had rifled through suggested that the husband, a Mr Geoffrey Tulliver, was a man of habit: though disorderly to the casual eye, they had been neatly sorted into stacks by category; notes, when taken, were precise and neat in the margins; the bookshelves in the sitting room held orderly rows of books on copyright law, angling, and cricket, apparently his only interests. Sherlock checked his watch: half past six. Already having left work, Tulliver would likely be at a certain gentlemen’s club whose name Sherlock had noticed on one of his bank statements, mobile phone silenced.

Sherlock wasn’t ready to confront him yet; still, though, Imogen would pose a problem in any attempt to tail the man. Remembering pureed peaches and Mycroft’s waistcoat, Sherlock had a fleeting thought to leave the baby with his brother, but he was loathe to indebt himself. Instead, he had the cabbie take him to the Waterloo Bridge embankment and wait while Sherlock made arrangements.

The girl — woman, really — blinked up at him; she held out one hand and gave her usual litany — _change to spare, guv?_ — before he leant down and placed Imogen’s carrier next to her.

“You had siblings you cared for, before, isn’t that right, Maggie?” She narrowed her eyes, cautious as usual, as they all were, his connections on the street, and with good reason given the general state of humanity.

“How’d you know that?” she said, pulling her hands in tight and tucking them to her sides to warm.

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Can you take care of a baby?”

She leaned back away from him. “Don’t leave that with me,” she said, nodding to the carrier, and he held out one hand, glove off.

“Just for a few hours,” he said, and she eyed the banknote folded in his palm. “Take her to a cafe, to the library, anywhere, just someplace warm. And just — mind her, for a few hours, while I take care of some things.”

“You’ll come back for her?” she said, eyes sliding slowly from him to the sleeping baby.

“I give you my word,” he nodded, and she shook his hand, slipping the £50 away into a pocket. Tilting the carrier up, she peered at Imogen’s face, half-obscured though it was by her woolly cap.

“Where’s the rest of her things?”

“What?”

She looked up at him, brow furrowed. “Her nappy bag?” Sherlock frowned; he hadn’t thought of that.

“Here —” He handed her another note. “Buy whatever you need.”

Maggie snorted. “You didn’t kidnap her, did you?”

“No. If anything, it’s the other way around.” Maggie looked up at him skeptically, and he shrugged as he stood. “Still have that phone?” She nodded. “Good. I’ll text you when I’m finished.”

Hands free and mind unclouded, Sherlock next went to Tulliver’s club, paying the taxi a street away so he could approach it from the rear and pick the lock of the service entrance.

The Savage Club was well-equipped with the usual — bar, library, billiards — and was neither so eccentric nor stuffy as other clubs with which Sherlock had some familiarity, including his brother’s own oddity, the Diogenes. The post-work atmosphere was convivial, and Sherlock was able to slip in with little distraction. Though younger than many of its members, the bespoke suit he wore — one of his better — and his lithe bearing would do wonders to convince others of his bona fides.

Picking up a drink at the bar, he meandered through the rooms, eyes out for Tulliver, exchanging pleasantries with those he passed. Most looked past him, for it was the mere hunch of a shoulder, set of a mouth, or cast of his eyes that moved him from demanding attention to eluding it.

Tulliver occupied the third room Sherlock tried: he had entertained a passing thought that the man might be alone, nursing a drink and his own guilt, but instead he was part of a raucous card game, two fingers of whiskey at his elbow and a winning-streak flush to his cheeks.

Sherlock settled in an armchair within Tulliver’s sight line, picking up a newspaper to disguise his gaze, and gave thanks for the lackadaisical atmosphere in which quiet contemplation of the day’s events and enthusiastic gambling coexisted in the same space.

Tulliver seemed to be up quite a bit, though they were only playing for small notes, but the others in the game appeared to hold no ill will. Surprising: Tulliver was well-liked. Sherlock, once more, realigned his conceptions of the man. Though he also seemed in remarkably good spirits for a man who may have just recently murdered his family, Sherlock knew that particular vice could be hidden away with ease by some.

No doubt by this point Lestrade would have started tracking down alternate methods of reaching the man; it was quite clear, however, that the official news had not yet caught up with him, for even the most brazen of murderers would never allow such a display of high spirits in the face of such a personal loss.

 _At the Savage Club_ , Sherlock texted to Lestrade, _Ring him here with the news. –SH_ Lestrade didn’t text back, but in a few minutes, a server stepped to Tulliver’s arm with a whispered notice and, with a frown, the man took his leave from the game.

Sherlock followed discreetly. If it was an act, him hearing the news, Tulliver was missing a career on stage. His face blanched appropriately, he reached for support against the edge of the desk and sank on shaking legs to the small stool. Sherlock himself was nearly convinced, but something in the confident roll of his shoulder, his unwavering hand, the tip of his mouth at the first words on the line and again after hanging up, all kept his nerves running tight.

Rather than leaving immediately, Tulliver went back to the gaming room, stopping short before reaching his chair and saying, and a distantly detached voice, “There’s been an accident. I must leave.”

Two of the other men at the table half-rose, but Tulliver shook his head, to all appearances unable to say another word, and turned to leave. Sherlock followed.

++

Tulliver went directly to the police station, and, at that point, Sherlock gave him up for the evening. He would undoubtedly be there for a few hours at least, and looked to be following the general protocol for an innocent family member. Dull.

He texted Maggie, who offered up the name of a cafe five streets away, and on his way there Sherlock considered the alternatives. Tulliver seemed — still seemed, despite his cool demeanour — a likely suspect, and statistics were certainly in his favour as the culprit. 

If either the Mr or Mrs Tulliver had been having an affair, that would be a route to pursue. The violence, the passion, the intimacy of the crimes — in their home, in the master bedroom, the arrangement of the bodies on the marriage bed — all pointed to someone who knew the victims.

The bell over the door rang as Sherlock stepped inside; Maggie and Imogen were holed up at a corner table. With one hand, Maggie gently rocked the carrier, propped on the table, and read a battered copy of Jane Eyre. Imogen smacked her lips messily around a bit of banana, the smashed remains of which smeared across her front and much of the table.

“That didn’t take long,” Maggie said, eyeing him.

“No,” Sherlock agreed, fishing in his pocket. He held out another banknote in his gloved hand, gesturing to Maggie. “For services rendered,” he said.

“I’ve still change from the last,” she said cautiously. 

“That’s fine. I appreciate your time,” he said stiffly, holding his hand to her impatiently. She shrugged and took the note, tucking it away into an inside pocket of her coat, and stood. Imogen peered up at him and waved one messy fist.

“Do you need me for longer, then, or...” 

Sherlock glanced up; he’d nearly forgotten her presence already. “No, no, that will suffice.”

“Okay,” Maggie said slowly. She still hovered and Sherlock looked up, raised an eyebrow. “Is she yours, then? You didn’t say.”

“No, I didn’t say,” Sherlock said mildly, and Maggie closed her mouth and nodded.

“Right, then. If you — you need a hand again, I’m. Well. You know how to find me.” She bit her lower lip. Sherlock peered at her for a moment, then nodded: it was quite clear that she missed her own siblings and had enjoyed the opportunity to care for someone else, even for just an hour.

“Of course,” he said, not quite as sharp, and with a crooked smile, she left.

++

At home, the crime scene photos were waiting in his inbox. Leaving Imogen to crawl on the sitting room floor, he settled on the sofa with his laptop perched on his chest and clicked through them, quickly, then slower, then examined each individual photo, zooming in when relevant. 

They confirmed his initial observations with just one startling surprise. Both mother and son had suffered repeated stabs to the abdomen, which, without further evidence, seemed to be cause of death. However, when lifting the boy’s body up to process and move to the mortuary, the back of his head was revealed to be a bloody, shattered mess. So, at some point, either shortly before or shortly after the stabbing — but almost certainly while he was still alive, given the state of the blood around the wound — the boy had suffered massive blunt force trauma to the back of the skull.

Sherlock clicked through the photos once more, rapidly. No immediate evidence of blood anywhere else in the house, just as he remembered, but also no apparent object that matched the state of his skull.

He clicked back and zoomed in on the skull once more, but in the photos the blood obscured too much of the wound to make out the shape of its edges. He checked his watch: just gone eight, plenty of time for the body to have been moved to the mortuary. 

++

Sherlock departed for St Bart’s with Imogen strapped back in her carrier and irritable at the restraint. She wasn’t quite crying steadily, but making her displeasure known with fierce little kicks punctuated by otherworldly screeching. The carrier had begun to weigh on his arm and the wailing on his ears, but he needed to be able to have his hands free if necessary. 

He gave a thought to how other parents he had met — a limited sample, assuredly — accomplished the same goal: his own parents had simply employed a barrage of nannies and tutors, and though none of his acquaintances bar Lestrade had their own offspring (and Lestrade’s daughter was already grown), he did know that many parents utilised a pram, which he did own. Despite its sleek design — and its price tag — it remained somewhat unwieldy for rapid changes in location. He couldn’t imagine having to collapse it with every cab ride. 

His mind alighted on a case he had worked last year in which a young working couple had been the only witnesses to a robbery. When they arrived at the station, the woman wore their young child in a sort of carry-all on her back, while the father had a similar contraption for their infant strapped to his chest. 

Giving a brief, pained consideration for his suits, Sherlock made a note to do a bit of research to see if he could purchase or create such an item that would allow him the use of his hands while still transporting Imogen. He would need to be able to run without injury to himself or the infant, as well, in case pursuit of a suspect became necessary, and, he thought with slight pleasure, he might add pockets in order to transport some of those handy items which simply ruined the line of a suit when carried in the pockets. Lock picks, for example. Zip ties, nitrile gloves. That fast-acting muscle relaxant he had nearly perfected the formula of.

The cab arrived at the hospital, interrupting his thoughts. 

Dr Hooper was on duty, which made Sherlock’s job half again easier. New to Bart’s, Molly Hooper had completed her pathology degree only sixteen month ago and was at once interested in new and gristly cases and eager to please. She also had a crush on Sherlock, which made her very amenable to his needs.

“Molly,” he said cheerfully as he pushed through the doors. “Is that a new cardigan?” He found that complimenting her immediately often turned her mind away from the fact that he wasn’t, strictly speaking, supposed to be there without a member of the police force present. 

She glanced down at the jumper, brushing her hands nervously across the surface. “No, no, it’s —” She looked up, cheeks flushed, and saw the baby carrier for the first time. Her eyes widened. He lifted it up, placing it on the end of an empty autopsy table.

“My daughter,” he said. He wasn’t sure, but given her penchant for kittens and other small animals, he thought she might respond favourably to seeing a baby and be even more inclined to let him get on with his work undisturbed. 

It didn’t quite work as he had hoped, however. Her eyes widened further, hands flapping ineffectually at her hips, and she backed away a step. “I — I didn’t realise,” she said, cheeks flaming, “I didn’t realise you were married.”

“I — oh!” Stupid! Of course that would be her first thought, given her romanticism, and it would put her right off her crush, and therefore her malleable usefulness, forever. “No,” he clarified, “I’m not. Her — her mother is, um. Her mother is deceased,” he said, uncertain if he should add more. How would his being a widower affect her affections?

“Oh!” she said, and looked up at him with eyes bright with pity. That was — was that preferable? No, he decided.

“She was a dear friend,” he added. “I merely provided the biological material.” Her brow furrowed, then cleared.

“Oh. Oh, I see.”

Before she could ask any of the many questions he could sense forming behind her brow, Sherlock asked after the location of the murder victims.

“Such a sad case,” Molly said, attention turned. Sherlock nodded impatiently. “I haven’t yet started the autopsies; I was leaving them for the morning.”

“That’s fine,” Sherlock said hastily. “I just need one thing at the moment.”

The boy’s head had already been cleaned, Sherlock noted with satisfaction. Measuring 3cm wide and 1.5cm deep, the wound extended across the back of the skull; whatever instrument or object had been used had impacted at a right angle, leaving a gape parallel with the floor, if the boy were standing. With enough force, a banister perhaps, or the back of a chair, but Sherlock thought it unlikely. He settled the boy’s head back in the neck cradle and looked at his face, now cleaned of blood. The nose was clearly broken as well, something he hadn’t noticed earlier in the melee. 

“Like he fell forward,” Sherlock mused, and Molly, at his shoulder, hummed.

“He was hit from behind,” she said. “That’d be my wager. Hard, enough to knock him over and against something. Poor wee thing.” He felt, more than saw, her glance over her shoulder to where Imogen still squawked her displeasure occasionally. 

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed. “With something you could swing at a low angle, something —” He unconsciously mimed the necessary gesture, then again. “Oh! Oh, splendid.” He spun on his heel and strode toward the door, hooking his arm around Imogen’s carrier on his way out. Molly’s weak goodbye sounded as he made his way down the corridor.

++

He met up with Lestrade very early the next morning, settling Imogen in her carrier on the floor of his office. Lestrade eyed the baby but allowed Sherlock to lead the conversation directly into the case. Time of death had been placed between seven and seven-thirty the previous morning, at which time Mr Tulliver was already on his way to work.

“We’re checking CCTV now for his car,” Lestrade confirmed, and Sherlock frowned.

“What else have you found in the home?” he asked, and Lestrade shook his head.

“Nothing suspicious. In the bedroom, fingerprints are all family. We’re running elimination on some found in the sitting room and kitchen, and we still have to gather prints from neighbours, family, friends. The door wasn’t forced,” he added.

“It’s clear it was personal,” Sherlock confirmed. “Phone records, email?”

“I’ll send them on.” 

Sherlock nodded, then went for his next lead. “What about the husband’s cricket gear? Have you found his bat?”

“His bat?” Lestrade frowned. “I don’t believe so — should we be looking?”

Sherlock sighed; Lestrade gritted his teeth. “The boy’s skull,” Sherlock said, enunciating slowly and watching as realisation dawned.

“Ah.” Lestrade fired off a text. “I’ll let you know.” Sherlock stood to leave, and Lestrade half-rose with him, holding out one hand. “Wait — you don’t think I’d let you get away without the full story.”

“The full story of what?” Sherlock said innocently, and Lestrade looked pointedly at the floor. Sherlock sighed, perching back on the edge of the chair. “She’s my biological progeny; her parents died two weeks ago; I was named guardian; I don’t intend to pursue custody,” he said, succinctly; Lestrade’s brow did not unfurrow. 

“She’s yours, then, really?”

“I’ll provide DNA if you’d like,” Sherlock snapped, and Lestrade held out one hand, pacifying. 

“Sorry, sorry. Were you — close, to her parents?”

Sherlock swallowed and kept his voice even as he said, “Her mother, Celia, was an — an acquaintance from university.”

“Right,” Lestrade said, seeming to sense the depth below his words despite his circumspection. “I’m sorry for your loss, then. If I can help at all, while you’ve got her —”

Sherlock nodded sharply. “Yes, duly noted. May I leave now?” Lestrade sighed, gesturing him away. 

++

The husband’s car was indeed seen on CCTV footage, and Sherlock was left once more with no concrete leads. Over the next two days, he sifted through every piece of correspondence the police had uncovered, searching for patterns that might indicate another. One name — Joe, no surname — popped up a few times, in two seemingly inconsequential texts from the wife’s phone and one email. The email, however, seemed to refer to an earlier conversation — _like you said; talk again soon_ — and Sherlock scoured her phone records for Joe’s number. It showed three times, all around the same time as the texts, occurring ten months previous, then did not again. The email was much more recent, though, and indicated that they were still in touch. A burn phone, perhaps?

Sherlock needed to find out Joe’s identity, and so he let himself swim in data, closing up the flat to anyone but the occasionally delivery person and Miguel, bringing a new case of nappies, and broke only to play his violin when either his eyes began to blur or Imogen made her own discomfort and boredom known.

++

Sherlock had reached the point in the case that was all facts, and numbers, and words, and sifting through data and evidence — texts, emails, phone records, witness statements — to piece together identities, and motives, and possible movements. He had all the data at hand, ready to reveal to him the glorious truth, but it stayed quiet and still, silenced by Imogen’s unceasing cries.

She had been crying now for 26 hours, more or less, only broken by an hour’s sleep here and there, forced from exhaustion, and Sherlock no longer knew the sound of his own mind. A pause — for breath, likely — came, and Sherlock read a line, two, and the pause broke, shattered once more by wailing, and Sherlock hated her.

Every muscle of his body quivered with distaste, disgust, with the snapped spine of impatience bent so tight that it turned to rage. Nothing he did to comfort her worked, nothing, so he stopped trying and left her in her cot to cry heaving, solitary tears.

At hour twenty he had broken and called Mycroft, who called a doctor, who knocked at Sherlock’s door forty-three minutes later only to declare that there was little he could do.

“Abdominal massages, warm compresses, burping — if it’s gastric distress, those can ease the pain,” he said. “She’s a normal temperature, seems to have no other outward signs of distress. She’s been eating normally, no vomit or changes in stool?”

“Yes, yes,” Sherlock answered impatiently. “What can I do to make it stop?”

The doctor looked at him sympathetically; Sherlock wanted to slap the expression off his face. “Not much, I’m afraid, other than continue to monitor her and let me know right away if she develops any other symptoms.” He opened his bag. “I’ll take a blood sample to check her levels, but her previous medical history indicates that she suffered from colic intermittently in her early months. It’s probably just be a flare-up.”

Of course Mycroft would have provided her medical records. “Colic,” Sherlock said scornfully — this was worse than fussing.

“Aye,” the doctor said, clapping him on the shoulder. Intolerable. “It’s a bitch, but you’ll get through it.” Two children, himself, though one wasn’t his biologically, Sherlock thought. Imogen hiccoughed and gasped and began her crying anew in the other room, and Sherlock’s teeth ached. 

The doctor went to take a sample, Sherlock staying behind, unable to go into that room, into the air so rent and squalid and filled with noise. His head ached. 

The doctor left with a promise to check in with the blood test results, and Sherlock fell, heavy, into one of the kitchen chairs. His laptop screen, open in front of him, blurred and swam, the text unintelligible, and all of it meant something, meant the truth and the end of the puzzle, but it was outside of his reach right now, his mind fuzzy, unfocused. 

If he could just — he reached for his phone, unconsciously — just focus, just bring his mind into his accustomed sharp clarity, he could finish this. He thumbed the buttons, finding Garrett’s number, and sent him a text. His last delivery had been finished only hours into Sherlock’s long vigil over the data, not nearly enough to keep his blood and mind sharp.

Imogen still cried in the other room when Garrett arrived, though it was mostly down to a soft, snuffling wail, and Garrett’s pale eyebrows shot up. Sherlock ignored his surprise, and shoved the notes into his hand, gesturing impatiently until Garrett handed him the vial. 

“Are you sure —” he said, before Sherlock slammed the door in his face; the entire transaction completed, in a moment, within the door frame of his foetid flat, and he distantly hoped that none of his neighbours — already none-too-pleased with the noise — had stepped out to observe.

The cocaine was in his veins quick-as-you-like, and he let it sink and spread for a long, glorious moment before he sat upright and pulled his laptop closer. The text before him swam for one frantic moment before stilling, coalescing into something intelligible, and he fell into it, the sphere of the world shrinking and honing into the very small pin-point that held him, and his data, and his mind.

When he came out of himself again, it was to the blaring ring of his phone; he groped for it and answered without looking at the screen. Next to his laptop was a pad of paper completely covered in his own scrawl, and at the bottom a location was written, and underlined four times with heavy, dark scratches.

“J&R Motors, Hackney Marsh,” he barked into the speaker, hoping Lestrade wouldn’t hear his voice crack with the sudden raw thirst he felt.

“Excuse me?” It wasn’t Lestrade after all, and Sherlock could not place the voice until it said, “Mr Holmes? It’s Doctor McTavish again, checking in on your daughter.”

“Oh,” Sherlock said, trying to remember what precisely that meant, and — Oh! — he sat bolt upright and listened. The flat was quiet. “Just a moment,” he said, dropping the phone and half-running to his bedroom.

In the cot, Imogen lay very still, her cheeks flushed red and tracked with tear-marks, the dried crust of weak vomit on her chin and chest, and he reached in and grasped her little body, hands flighty with panic, and she gasped herself awake, and his knees faltered, knocking against the bars of the cot. She sucked in a great amount of air and gave a sore, harsh wail, and he felt sick with relief.

He picked her up; her cries were reedy and thin in his ear. In the kitchen again, he tucked the phone against the other ear and said, “Much the same, if more tired,” and felt a sick swell of pride at the steadiness of his voice.

“Well,” the doctor said, “her blood levels are normal, which is good, as it means she’s healthy in that way at least, but also means I’ve no better solution to offer. Feed her if she’ll take it, change her nappy, and give it another few hours before bringing her in.”

Sherlock looked at his watch; it had been six hours since the doctor’s visit, six hours since he’d tended her, and unease settled heavy across his shoulders.

“Yes, fine,” he said to the phone, clicking it shut and dropping it on the table. Imogen’s nappy did need changing, and she took half a bottle and three fussy mouthfuls of sweet potatoes, but she left off crying for a while, though her small chest heaved with angry breath.

He cradled her against him and did call Lestrade, giving him the location of where Joe — Rawley Joseph Tulliver, the dead woman’s brother-in-law — might be holed up. Lestrade’s voice was cautious on the phone, and Sherlock rang off at his tentative inquiry into Sherlock’s well-being.

Sitting on the sofa, legs crossed, Sherlock settled Imogen onto his lap and, holding his hands up and away from her squirming limbs, drew out another — very small — dose of cocaine. Once it was in the syringe, he had just enough left for one more hit like it, just a bit to jolt him out of the nervy tension that seemed wrought in the very air around him. He injected it and tucked the cap onto the needle, leaving it in the centre of the coffee table, and stroked down Imogen’s sides as it spread through his body. 

Fortified, he felt ready to pick her up once more and knock her gently against his shoulder and pat her back, repetitious, for however many hours it took to soothe her again.

++

Lestrade didn’t text him when they found the suspect, but came by his flat; he only did this when worried about something Sherlock had done or said, and, for a moment upon hearing his knock, Sherlock thought very hard about anything else he might have done, unrelated to Imogen, that would bring Lestrade to his door. He could think of nothing, and Imogen’s presence was simply a temporary condition, so he did not worry to call out to Lestrade to come in.

He hadn’t locked the door after — after Garrett, which was perhaps unwise, but — and he was quite comfortable on the sofa with Imogen, blessedly asleep, finally, curled upon his chest. His violin rested against her narrow back, and he silently fingered the strings in some concentration, working out the greater tune of which those imaginary twangs made a skeleton. 

Lestrade went straight to the kitchen and filled a glass from the tap, drinking it straight down. 

“Thirsty work, Inspector?” Sherlock called, keeping his voice pitched low, just loud enough to reach the kitchen. 

“We caught him, Sherlock,” Lestrade said as he walked into the room, ignoring Sherlock’s taunt. “We’re going to try to charge him, but the evidence —” he shook his head; Sherlock could just see him if he tilted his forehead back. “There’s not much,” he said, with a shrug, and Sherlock frowned.

“Didn’t you find the —” 

“Yeah,” Lestrade interrupted wearily. “Nothing conclusive. The house alarm had been turned off, the back door unlocked. We know he’s been in the house many times, so DNA and fingerprints are to be expected. We need more.” He dropped heavily into the armchair, rubbing his head. Propping his elbows on his knees, he lifted his head to look at Sherlock for the first time, and startled back. “Jesus — I didn’t —” He sucked in a breath, low, and Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “She’s still with you, then?” he asked cautiously.

“Evidently,” Sherlock said, peevish. 

“I thought you said —”

“It is,” Sherlock interrupted. “It is temporary. Another solution will be found, soon.”

“Okay,” he said, still cautious, and cast his gaze about the room. It was still in some disarray from Sherlock’s increasingly desperate attempts to distract Imogen from her distress, and Sherlock remembered the bottle and needle on the table at the exact moment Lestrade’s gaze fell there.

“Sherlock —” he said, and stood, and Sherlock didn’t move as Lestrade lifted the bottle from the table. “Is this —” He didn’t need Sherlock’s confirmation; the way he averted his gaze was enough, surely. “Jesus,” he spit out. “For all the love of bloody — Do you realise what — No.” He stopped; the bottle was clenched very tightly in one hand. “You’re responsible for a child now, Sherlock. This isn’t — it’s not a game.”

Sherlock laid the violin at the end of the sofa and, cupping his hands around Imogen’s — mercifully still-sleeping — body, swung his feet down to stand. “Do you think I don’t know that?” he said, very steady, and Lestrade’s eyes narrowed. “Do you think I don’t realise with her every waking, wailing, demanding, awful breath that she’s completely, helplessly, dependent on me? That I’ll have to — for the rest of —” he stopped; the words were too much, too final, to utter. 

“So you cope with this?” Lestrade said, gesturing with his fist.

“Just to —” Sherlock took a hissing breath, hearing the weakness of his words. “Just for the case, just to — She’s been crying,” he said, finally, dragging his red eyes up to meet Lestrade’s. “For — for two days, I think, I — couldn’t think.” 

Lestrade’s eyes softened, just a bit. “That’s — it’s rough, I know, you feel like you’ll come apart at the edges, but you can’t, Sherlock, you can’t do this. You know that.”

Sherlock swallowed and looked away. He would not beg for it back. Lestrade took a great breath in. “You’re off the case,” he said, quietly, and Sherlock’s eyes snapped back up.

“What? I — It was just the once, just — I won’t again, don’t need to, I found him, I —” Lestrade kept shaking his head.

“No. I can’t have —” His fist, around the bottle, clenched so hard Sherlock thought it might shatter. “I can’t have an addict working on cases,” he said finally. “You’re off until you — until I can know you’re done, completely, with it.” He scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his other hand. “I know people who can help, if you want it,” he said, finally, defeated, and turned to leave.

“No — I —” Sherlock grabbed his elbow, and Lestrade, rather than wrenching it away, simply looked at him. Sherlock dropped his hand. “You still need me,” he said, “you can’t do this without me,” his voice coming out cruel and cold.

“I can,” Lestrade said. “I must.” He stepped around the armchair and walked to the door. “Just —” he said, facing the door, and his empty hand clenched, pounded once on the door frame. He shook his head, and left, the door clicking shut softly behind him. 

++

Sherlock was unsurprised when Mycroft arrived a mere forty-five minutes later. He had been in contact with Lestrade nearly since Sherlock had started working with him, though he knew Lestrade was generally loathe to pass on information. 

By then, Sherlock had settled Imogen back in her cot, where she slept, very still, exhausted. He played the violin, not properly, not really, jagged edges of disjointed sounds, and wondered if these two days alone would be enough to have him evicted. 

Mycroft settled in the armchair, silent, and simply watched and waited for Sherlock to grow weary of his quiet attention. He did, finally, the tension creeping along his back at Mycroft’s eyes growing too much, and put the violin away in its case and sat on the sofa.

“You —” Mycroft started, then cleared his throat, beginning again. “I had hoped that you —”

“Yes, I know,” Sherlock interrupted. The words were not as biting as he intended. Mycroft sighed, very deeply, and very unlike his usual polite sighs at Sherlock’s intransigence. 

“What do you intend?” Mycroft asked, and it was so very unexpected that Sherlock’s head snapped up. His brother’s shoulders slumped and his eyes were tired.

“I don’t —” Sherlock started. “I’m not certain,” he said, finally, exhaustion chipping away at his reserve and allowing in the edge of truth. Mycroft nodded.

“I think you should —” he started, very slowly, as if gathering his thoughts together. “You might keep — keep trying, for another week or two. In the meantime, I will look into other arrangements, and, if at the end you still wish to have nothing to do with — with your —” Sherlock inhaled sharply, and Mycroft pursed his lips together before conceding — “With Celia’s daughter, then it will be so.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes, trying to see Mycroft’s hidden angle, but Mycroft looked more weary, more resigned, than he had perhaps ever seen him. He nodded, tightly. “Fine.”

“And — if it is amenable to you — I will have some help sent over, each day, to watch her while you work. If that will —” he stopped, didn’t say _keep you off the cocaine_ , though they both heard it. Sherlock nodded again.

“Yes, that would be — helpful.” Not that he wished for one of Mycroft’s minions in his space day in and out, but a break, a relief, even just a second pair of hands — after nine days only, he was astonished to know that some people could do this single-handedly, year after year. 

“Fine,” Mycroft said. He stood and, leaning over, picked up the used syringe from the table. He didn’t ask if Lestrade had taken all of it; he knew his brother’s habits by now. “You should get some rest, while she’s...” Sherlock nodded; his skin still jittered with anger and the come-down, in that order, and he had gone longer without it, but if she woke again tomorrow with the same terrible wail in her belly, he would not be able to stand it, not without rest. 

Pocketing the syringe, Mycroft nodded to him and left; this time, Sherlock locked the door behind him, and went and curled in his bed fully clothed.

++

Lestrade ignored his texts for the next two days.

_Let me back in. –SH_

_I can help. –SH_

_Please. –SH_

The news speculation was unending; Sherlock flipped station to station before throwing the remote to the floor, exhausted with their small-minded idiocy. Within the lurid, eager dissection of the so-called tragedy — newscasters with bright eyes, interrupting and speaking over one another in an effort to express their disgust, even as the corners of their mouths fought to smile; old classmates, friends, and neighbours, clamouring for their proverbial fifteen; experts of all ilk weighing in with only the barest of information — within the teeming mass, Sherlock knew a kernel of the truth was buried. 

Geoffrey Tulliver’s brother, Rawley — Mariana Tulliver’s _Joe_ — seemed likely on paper. A temper and three charges to his name, one for brawling and two for public drunkenness, Rawley had lived a decade in and out of jobs, seemingly reliant on the charity of his brother and sister-in-law. With all that, though, Mariana and Joe still found some mutual attraction to lead them to an affair, the evidence of which was found not in a burner phone but in a secondary email account on Mariana’s laptop. According to the news, the police still had Rawley in custody, though little other concrete evidence was leaked to the press.

Leaving the telly blaring, Sherlock pulled up his laptop once more. He curled his toes into the sofa; Imogen, whose core strength had improved over the past week, sat propped against the back of the sofa cushion, playing happily with a soft book about cartoon farm animals. Though deplorably biologically inaccurate, it kept her amused. Catching the movement of his feet, though, she let go of the book and reached for his toes, toppling over as she did. With a sigh, Sherlock wriggled his feet around her body, using them to prop her back up without getting up, and then left his toes resting against her leg so she could tug and poke at them at her will. 

Setting his hands to keyboard, Sherlock sent up a silent thanks to Lestrade’s complacency in allowing him into his office so often, making it laughably easy to discover his latest password after each mandatory change. Logging in remotely, Sherlock was able to read the transcripts of the police interviews with Rawley. 

Things didn’t look good for the man: no real alibi, sexual involvement with Mariana, and some of her jewelry in his possession. Geoffrey’s cricket bat had been found in the back garden, apparently thrown from the window, with the son’s blood and prints from both men and the boy on the handle. The police seemed to be going with a theory of anger, jealousy, and desperation: a man, seeing everything he wanted to have in his own brother’s life sought an affair then turned on the family. Maybe Geoffrey only escaped by already being out of the house.

A fine theory, Sherlock supposed, but it simply didn’t sit right. 

++

Sherlock stayed awake through the night, though he lay in bed. He listened, with one attentive ear, to the soft sounds of Imogen’s sleeping — strange, small sighs, hiccoughs, shifting little kicks to the mattress — while he worked, over and again, the facts through.

The media had all but convicted Rawley, the deadbeat brother, and continued to salivate over all the bloody suppositions as to motive. The police had yet to charge him, however, as it was quite clear their evidence was primarily circumstantial. Around five in the morning, Sherlock stumbled out to the sitting room, turning on the telly while making a cup of coffee. He gulped the first drink, far too hot, just as the morning news switched to the media room at Scotland Yard.

Behind the conference table, Lestrade rubbed at his eyes while the cameraman focused. Dark smudges remained in the bags of his eyes, stark against his wan skin. “We are, at this time, releasing Mr Rawley Tulliver from police custody.” A slow buzz permeated the room as the members of the media present discussed this unexpected reveal excitedly. 

The sergeant next to Lestrade, Gregson, cleared her throat pointedly. Looking down at his hands and cracking his knuckles, Lestrade continued. “We are continuing to review the evidence available. We have the best minds in the force working on it, and we’re confident we will discover the assailant.” Lestrade scratched at one ear; a tell signifying his own uncertainty with his words.

“Wrong,” Sherlock said, annoyed, to the telly.

“Should the public be afraid for their own safety?” 

“There’s no indication that this was anything other than personal. We believe the assailant was known to the victims and that the attack was spontaneous. There is no reason to believe this will happen again.” 

Wrong on at least one count, Sherlock thought. The attack might look spontaneous, but it wasn’t. He muted the television, uninterested in the petty fears of the small-minded media, and tossed the remote to the floor. Cracking his neck, he steepled his fingers to his lips. His foot tapped against the arm of the sofa.

In his mind, he flashed once more through the photographs from the scene. The rooms, the blood splatter, the bodies on the bed and, later, in the mortuary. The knife, the wounds, the as-yet-unseen cricket bat. Sherlock’s eyes flew open. 

Grabbing his laptop, he once more opened the autopsy photos. Clicking impatiently through until he found the right one, he scrolled and zoomed until — there — the wound on the boy’s head. He clicked through, then back, then to a set with increased magnification. Tracing the radiating fractures of the boy’s skull with his fingers, he compared the image to the measurements taken. Closing his eyes, he calculated forces and angles, making small adjustments until he was certain he had it just right.

Sherlock opened his eyes, flicking back through the photos once more, when a movement on the telly caught his eye. He turned the sound up: Geoffrey Tulliver stood in front of New Scotland Yard, surrounded by media.

“I ask you to let my client grieve without disturbance,” his solicitor said. “This is a very difficult time, as I’m sure you can imagine, and he asks for your understanding.” Flashbulbs went off around him, but Tulliver didn’t blink. He didn’t even move his head, though his hands flexed, just slightly, at his sides. “We have every faith that the police will bring the culprit to justice, and my client is cooperating in ever possible way,” the solicitor continued, and Tulliver finally moved. Or, rather, his mouth did, minutely, barely enough to notice, but notice Sherlock did.

“Oh. Oh!” He jumped from the sofa and wriggled into his shoes, throwing his coat over day-old clothes and running out the door.

++

He just needed to talk to Tulliver, just speak to him for a moment, and he knew he could crack it. Just a few words, and — when he brings Lestrade the proof, he’ll have to let him back in, to allow Sherlock to consult again. 

Tulliver would have gone to his club again: the house was still sealed off, he had no further family in town beyond his brother, and Rawley’s lack of guilt at the crime only made the chasm between them more abrupt, Sherlock reasoned. 

Slipping in through the same service entrance, Sherlock stalked through the club, this time aware of a few wayward glances taking in his dishevelled appearance. Unable to find Tulliver at all, Sherlock pounded up the stairs, interrupted halfway by a sharp call of his voice.

“Sherlock Holmes? You are Sherlock Holmes, sir?” A server — starched white shirt, one cuff askew, back from a smoking break — stood at the bottom of the staircase with an enquiring look.

“Yes,” Sherlock answered curtly. The man shifted from one foot the the other, uncertain, as Sherlock eyed him more intently. They hadn’t met before, not that he remembered, unless — Well, it certainly was possibly, clubs being dark as they are, and encounters so frequently erased in the morning. “What?” Sherlock said sharply, and the man shook his head, startled.

“It’s just — there’s a phone call for you,” he said. “Said to look for a tall bloke in a long coat. I don’t recall seeing you here before,” he added unnecessarily. Sherlock hesitated on the step. 

“You haven’t,” Sherlock answered blithely, stepping down the treads toward the young man. On the last step, he leaned in, towering over the server; the man bit at the edge of his lip, his eyes wide. “Where is the phone?”

“What?” the man breathed out, and Sherlock nearly rolled his eyes. The lack of professionalism simply reeked off him. 

“The telephone,” Sherlock said, unnecessarily slowly. “On which I have a phone call?” The server jerked his head back behind them, to the bar, and with a sigh Sherlock pushed passed him.

“Sherlock Holmes speaking,” he said into the mouthpiece and received a slow chuckle in response.

“I thought you’d be there,” the man on the other end said, clearly pleased. “I, however, am not.”

“Tulliver,” Sherlock said. He glanced around; no one else but the server seemed to notice him, and the way the man’s eyes darted back and forth meant he was little danger.

“Yes, yes,” Tulliver said impatiently. “And you’re the Yard’s little hound. Though I’ve heard you had a falling out with your owners.” His voice dripped with mock sympathy.

“What do you want?”

“You haven’t figured that out?”

Sherlock considered. “Recognition,” he said, with more confidence than he felt. “Your little scheme went off just as you planned, and no one suspects a thing, and isn’t that boring.”

The laugh on the end of the line sounded hoarse, raw. “Well, small minds, no imagination. You still haven’t figured it out, even.” Pleased, inordinately so, and Sherlock gritted his teeth. “But no,” Tulliver continued with a sigh, “this isn’t about me, it’s about you.”

“Me?” Sherlock’s tongue felt dumb in his mouth, hateful thing. 

“Yes, you, apparently,” the man said, impatient. “Unless you’d rather forget the whole thing? Leave the case unsolved? I know you have your suspicions, but you haven’t a shred of evidence, so there’s no one who’d listen.”

Sherlock forced himself to inhale, exhale, and licked his lips before responding. “Are you so certain I haven’t?”

The laugh again. “Of course you haven’t. Or else we wouldn’t be speaking like this, would we?”

“What do you want me to do?” Sherlock tried not to sound too desperate; it came out quite annoyed instead.

“Central YMCA. In an hour, say? I think I’ll be able to bring all sorts of things you’ll want.”

“Fine,” Sherlock said. He waited for Tulliver to hang up, then stood, looking absently at the phone, for a long while. 

“Good talk, was it?” The server from earlier stood behind him, lingering. He was quite close.

Sherlock turned, fingers drumming against the edge of the bar behind him. “What do you know of Geoffrey Tulliver?”

“Who — oh. Oh. That’s what you’re here for. Press, are you?”

“No. An interested party.”

“What does that even mean?” The man had taken a step back, but by the way he let his shoulders tilt forward, and the swipe of his tongue over his lips, he was still interested in Sherlock and — well. 

“I’m investigating the death of his wife and child.”

“Yeah,” the man said; his tone said _obvious_. “But for who?”

“The Met,” Sherlock lied blithely, and the man’s eyes widened slightly.

“Oh, I didn’t — didn’t realise.”

“Yes, yes.” Sherlock gestured, impatient.

“Oh — right — I didn’t know him, not well. He came into the club, like any member. Um. He drank whiskey, played cards, chatted. Just a normal bloke, really.” Sherlock sighed; this avenue of inquiry was really a colossal waste of time, and with Tulliver awaiting him he really couldn’t be bothered.

“Fine, fine,” he said, and turned abruptly. The man called out to him as he walked away, but he ignored it, stepping out into the cold night. He turned up his coat collar and hailed a cab.

++

“Odd place for a meeting, this,” Sherlock said as he stepped through the door. Water lapped gently at the edge of the pool, and his voice reverberated against the tile and the high, arching ceiling. There was no answer for a beat, and then Tulliver’s now-familiar laugh, harsh and wry, sounded.

“Don’t you recognise it?” Tulliver stood in one of the cubicles, still hidden, and Sherlock looked the room over more attentively. The cheerful red and white curtains, the curiously Victorian placards jarring with the new illuminated exit signs, the warm air, the tang of chlorine. Sherlock inhaled sharply as he realised.

“Ah, you’ve remembered.” Tulliver sounded pleased.

“Carl Powers,” Sherlock said, as the information, filed away, flooded back in a deluge of images, of emotions — an intractable sergeant, information missing, frustration and anger and spite and his mouth spitting out every vile thing about everyone who wouldn’t listen. The train back home. Mycroft’s disappointed eye. The knowledge locked away close to his chest, where it fed into his veins, that he was right, he was right, and they were all wrong. 

“Indeed,” Tulliver said from the shadows. “No one listened to you then, did they? And they won’t now, either, I’m afraid. Children have that effect on most — normal — adults.” Sickly grin in his voice, he stepped out. In his arms he held — he held — no, it couldn’t be — 

The slamming of a door, Imogen still asleep in her crib, and he’d forgotten her, he had, left her behind like so much unwanted baggage, and she was, she was unwanted, unneeded in his life, an unnecessary hindrance, he told himself once more. It still remained, however, that her fragile, sleeping body in the hands of a man who’d murdered his own son cut his breath away like his lungs were stolen.

“You can’t have — how did you —”

“Please.” Tulliver rolled his eyes. “You didn’t even lock the door behind you.” He stepped closer, two yards between them, a yard and a half. Imogen, tucked against his chest, moved one fist in sleep. Her hair was very dark against the whiteness of his shirt and her skin pale in the sickly yellow light. “You forgot her,” he said, mockingly. “How pathetic is that?”

“You’re hardly deserving of father of the year yourself,” Sherlock said, dryly, his voice unshaken.

Tulliver laughed, the sound sharp against the soft lapping of the water. “Kyle wasn’t even my son, did you know that? My bitch of a wife had been sleeping with my bastard of a brother for that long. I mean that literally,” he said, with a shrug. “My mother had an affair. I knew, even if my father didn’t.”

“Is that why you killed them?”

“Hmm? Oh, needs must and all.” 

“And you knew your brother would be the perfect fall man. Having an affair already, short on cash — maybe this was the time she decided to end it.”

“Are you trying to make me confess?” Tulliver grinned and took another step nearer. “I’m not quite so gullible.”

“Well then, why did you want to meet me? To chat about the weather?”

Tulliver shrugged. “Call me curious. I’ve heard things about you — just rumours, mind, nothing of any real importance — and wanted to see if you lived up to it. I must say I’m disappointed.”

“I’m terribly sorry.”

“I thought surely — a man so good even the police need him — I thought you’d crack it in a heartbeat. But here you are, unable to prove anything about any suspect.”

Sherlock coughed and licked his lips, slowly. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”

Tulliver’s eyes narrowed. “You’re bluffing.”

“Am I?” Sherlock made a show of looking around the room, bored, then shrugged. “If you think so, then I’ll just be going.” He didn’t say a word about Imogen, though his very nerves screamed for her to be away, away, away from Tulliver and his sickly laugh and his dyed hair and his too-tight tie. 

Sherlock turned away, taking a step, and Tulliver said, “Just like that? I don’t think so.” Biting back his grin, Sherlock stopped, turning back on his heel slowly. Tulliver peered at Sherlock, examining his stance and the bored curl of his lip. Sherlock tucked his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “I don’t believe you can prove anything,” he said, but his voice was less certain. “And I don’t believe you’d leave your daughter with me, shite parent though you might be.”

“Ah, you’ve got me there.” Sherlock held out one hand. “Give her here, and I’ll be out of your hair.” Tulliver dropped his shoulder back involuntarily, moving her slightly further away from Sherlock’s reaching hand, and narrowed his eyes.

“I don’t think so. You see, she’s my bargaining chip.” Tulliver’s empty hand moved from his side; Sherlock flinched forward a second too late, and Tulliver pressed a handgun to Imogen’s tiny skull. “You tell me what you think you know, and I won’t kill her. You don’t, and I’ll shoot you first, then her, and leave you both to drown in the pool.”

Sherlock clenched his teeth; he hadn’t expected the gun. Stupid, stupid! 

“The cricket bat,” he said, more nonchalantly than his racing heart felt.

“What?” Tulliver said, clearly annoyed. “Anyone can play cricket.”

“Yes, however,” Sherlock cleared his throat. “However, the cricket bat, or, more precisely, the wound caused by the cricket bat, single you out particularly. It wasn’t distinct upon first viewing the wound, or even when I saw it cleaned in the morgue. However, the final autopsy report, with the magnified views of the micro-fractures in the skull, revealed all.”

“That’s a load of rubbish,” Tulliver tossed out, but his gun hand wavered, and, with a smile incipient, Sherlock continued.

“The blow was expertly done, a solid hit with little hesitation. Now, that could be either you or your brother — you’ve both played since you were small — and the fact that it was your cricket bat hardly proves a thing. To a good batsman, the nuances of each individual bat, their weight and balance and how well they’ve been knocked in, can be ascertained in a moment. But, as you’ve very obligingly demonstrated here tonight, this particular blow could only come from you, not your brother.”

“What?” The man’s eyes, predictably, were becoming more alarmed. His grip on the gun tightened, adjusted, and Sherlock hurried on.

“You’re holding the gun in your left hand.” Tulliver glanced down at the gun. “You’re ambidextrous, predominantly right-leading in everyday tasks, but when it comes to precision, you trust your left more. And the micro-fractures in your son’s skull prove that the blow could only have come from someone who batted left handed, which you do. Or at least choose to.”

“That’s absurd; you can’t tell that —”

“Oh, I assure you, I can,” Sherlock interrupted. “Now, do you want me to go on?” Tulliver’s face was flushed and his jaw tight. “I can tell you, for example, how the stab wounds in your son’s abdomen prove premeditation, and how you used a small electric heater to make the time of death seem later, allowing you to leave home at your usual time, be caught on camera, and still make it seem as though they died while you were in your car. Or I could —”

“Enough!” Tulliver swallowed tightly. “Enough. You know,” he started, wild-eyed, “it was a relief to find out the bastard wasn’t mine. He was an idiot, that kid, always staring with his big, dumb eyes. They looked the same, even in death, even after I hit him. Like the whole world was just a mystery. Dumb little fuck.” He was looking, unfocused, somewhere to the side, and Sherlock took the opportunity of his distraction to step closer.

“My wife, too. I mean, an affair — whatever, I had them, I assumed she did too. But with my worthless brother? How low can you be, how desperate? It was disgusting.”

“So you killed her,” Sherlock said, quietly, and Tulliver looked back at him, startled, as if he’d forgotten Sherlock was there. 

“Yeah,” he snarled, “I stabbed the bitch and I felt her bleed. She deserved it, too.”

“Must have been messy,” Sherlock ventured, and Tulliver grinned once more, beaming.

“Oh, it was. I wore one of those — coverall things. Put it in a bag, tossed it in some random skip. It’s long gone by now.” He looked at Sherlock again, suddenly seeming to realise how close he’d gotten. “As you will be,” he said, and moved the gun to point at Sherlock’s head.

The movement gave Sherlock just enough time to rush him; the gun came away with a snap of pressure to Tulliver’s wrist, but he wrenched back, holding Imogen fiercely; her cries broke through the room with a sharpness that ate down into Sherlock’s marrow.

Sherlock lifted the gun. “Set her down, and step away,” he said, very calmly. Tulliver’s grip tightened, and he took a step back. “I said —”

“Fuck off,” Tulliver snarled and, with a flash of movement, tossed Imogen’s wailing body to the side. Without taking the time for precise aim, Sherlock squeezed off a shot, just hearing Tulliver’s shout of pain before taking two steps and diving into the pool after Imogen’s struggling body.

Swaddled tight in a blanket, Imogen’s limbs gave no assistance, and she sank, rapidly. Her body just touched the bottom as Sherlock reached her, and he grasped her, far too tight, to his chest and kicked off with all the strength in his legs. Breaking the surface, Sherlock gasped, but there was no answering inhale to Imogen’s lungs. He scrambled to the edge and hauled them both out, barely aware of Tulliver’s movements as he tried to drag himself out of the room, leaving behind a lurid crimson trail.

He knew basic first aid, CPR, but not — not on children, not infants, and her body, in his hands, was very limp. He spread her on the wet concrete floor — too hard, too wet — and scooped a finger in her mouth, clearing the airway. He tilted her head back and pumped his hand, in a fist, against her chest, then again. Her ribs, still cartilaginous, yielded beneath his hands, bending. She still did not breathe, and his own lings burned.

He pressed down, again, once more, then dropped his head down, fitting his mouth over hers, covering her nose, and pushed his desperate breath into her lungs. He pulled back, compressed her chest, breathed again. His ears rang.

He thought he might break her body, with the force of his hands, and would gladly if it would bring her back to him. Would hurt her if it meant she lived. He kept his compressions going, and going, though he felt lost, and just when he thought his own body might give way, all the breath he had instead of her failing him entirely, she coughed.

A wet, gurgling, awful, wonderful sound, the cough forced a dribble of water out the edge of her mouth; he lifted her, tilted her forward so she could cough up everything that tried to drown her, and she did, spit it up into his lap and took a wide, rattling breath, and let out a wail that ricocheted through the room, and Sherlock laughed in relief.

Cradling her to his chest, Sherlock stood with some difficulty, his leg nearly giving way under his weight. Slumped against the wall, Tulliver groaned, drawing Sherlock’s attention once more. Sherlock bent, trying very hard not to collapse to his knees, and retrieved the dropped gun. 

“No — no, I —” Tulliver’s voice, raw and hoarse, skated across the cold tile. Sherlock ignored him and lifted the gun. He pulled the trigger.

++

The hospital bed was more than unnecessary; he’d pushed the nurses away from his leg again and again, until one of them told him to sit his bloody arse down, and the sooner they cleaned him up the sooner he could see his daughter, so he did. The scratch on his leg was just that, really, and mended with glue, no stitches needed. Sherlock swiped what was left of the tube and tucked it in his pocket, and his nurse pretended like she hadn’t seen, and let him hobble down to the ICU where Imogen lay curled in an incubator.

She was the largest baby in there, the rest premature or suffering from ongoing congenital issues, and her chest rose and fell, gusty and strong, and Sherlock’s knees felt a bit weak. He leant against the edge of the window and resisted tapping against it; she, and the others around her, were asleep in their mechanical bubbles, and would not hear.

“She’ll be just fine,” the nurse told him. She lingered at his elbow. “No permanent damage, not that we can see.” Sherlock didn’t answer, just exhaled; his breath fogged the glass at his nose. “If you scrub up, you can go in,” the nurse ventured, and Sherlock straightened very quickly and nodded.

Lestrade found him, three hours later, in a rocking chair pulled up next to Imogen’s incubator. His hand had got pins and needles, tucked as it was into the rubber-sealed opening that allowed him to stroke her hair, touch her arms, feel the rise of her chest. She’d be out tomorrow, they said, and this was just a precaution: fluids and oxygen, giving her sore little lungs a bit of a break.

He tapped on the glass, and jerked his head toward the door, and Sherlock ignored him. He tapped again, then pressed his warrant card up to the window and tipped his chin at Sherlock; the nurse, whom Sherlock hadn’t even heard move, cuffed his ear and told him to move out.

With a murderous glare, Sherlock extricated himself from the incubator after one last tap to Imogen’s cheek. In the hallway, all the quiet buzz of a busy hospital emerged again, full in his ears after the stillness of the ICU. 

“I’ll need a statement,” Lestrade said, redundantly. Sherlock rolled his eyes.

“He kidnapped my daughter, threatened us both, and attempted to kill her by throwing her into a pool. That should sum it up.”

Lestrade clicked his teeth. “Bit of luck, hitting both of his kneecaps in all that action.”

“I’ve always had excellent aim in stressful situations,” Sherlock said, dryly, and shrugged.

“He’ll not walk again,” Lestrade said, quietly. “We might have enough to convict, this time, but —”

“Ah, yes,” Sherlock interrupted. “My mobile will still be in my coat pocket. There’ll be water damage, but I’m certain your people will be able to salvage the most recent recording. You might find it of use.”

Lestrade snorted. “You’re a marvel.” Sherlock cleared his throat and looked away, lip twitching up. Lestrade looked into the ICU. “Will she be okay?” he asked, quietly enough that Sherlock knew he’d already checked in with the nurses.

“She’ll come home tomorrow.”

“With you?”

Sherlock bit his lip. “Yes,” he said, and Lestrade inhaled.

“That’s — that’s good,” he said, and Sherlock looked at him sharply. “You care, Sherlock,” he said, with more aggression than Sherlock expected. “That’s more than — much more than many kids get.” He didn’t add more, though it lingered in the air between them.

Sherlock exhaled. “If you —” He cleared his throat, started again. “If you had some recommendations to send me, I would be obliged.” 

“I’ll — I’ll get them to you in the morning,” Lestrade said, after a pause. “If that will —”

“Yes, that will suffice,” Sherlock said, not quite sharply enough to cut away the assurance in his voice. 

“Mr Holmes?” They both turned; the nurse stood in the open doorway. “Your daughter’s waking. Would you like to hold her?” Sherlock nodded and, exchanging a glance with Lestrade, followed the nurse.

In his arms, Imogen felt heavier than she had in their two weeks together. Her cheeks, flushed pink, moved with each breath, and her fist curled around his index finger. She blinked up at his face. “I wouldn’t be opposed,” he murmured, rubbing his thumb across the back of her hand, “if you were to call me Papa.” Imogen yawned and curled into his lap tighter.


End file.
